BE A CHAMPION!!!! CHAMPIONS DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY!!!!

A Champion is a Person who v oluntarily takes extraordinary interest in the adoption, implementation, and success of a cause, policy, program, project, or product. He or she will typically t ry to force the idea through entrenched internal resistance to change, and will evangelize it throughout the organization. Also called change advocate, change agent, or idea champion.

How to Be a Champion

Champions do so much more than win. Part attitude, part natural ability, and part hard work, living your life like a champion is possible in all walks of life, whether you're an athlete, academic, or air-traffic controller. You can learn to find the right kind of championship and define success for yourself, laying the groundwork with a training regimen, and how to be a good winner who carries yourself like a champ.

Part 1

Finding Your Championship

• Identify your natural talents. Champions identify the gifts that they've been given and seek to develop them into expertise. Competitive skill, natural athletic ability, and other talents are the seed from which championships grow, but they need to be watered with intelligent focus and hard training. You can't hop straight into the NBA or get hired on as a CEO for a tech company without identifying your talents and training to improve them.
• Identify your limitations. An athlete who is not gifted with blazing speed can make up for it by increasing their agility, strength, jumping ability, or strategy, but it's important to be honest. If you're an intelligent soccer player, you won't develop an attachment for playing striker if your shot is inaccurate, but your defending skills are top-notch.
• Explore different fields of play. Explore lots of competitive and non-competitive fields to see where you might be great. Diversify your talents and find your expertise.
• Maybe you've idolized LeBron James since childhood and can't get it out of your head to be a professional basketball champion, just like him. If you can't shoot your way out of a cardboard box and stumble on your own feet when you try to shoot a lay-up, that might be hard. But maybe you're built like Dick Butkus, or you can do the quadratic formula in your head–maybe you were destined for greatness in some other field.
• Play lots of different sports, even if you're worried you won't be good. If you love football, try out volleyball to develop hand-eye-coordination and see if your skills translate. If you love playing tennis, try out a team sport like soccer to see if you don't enjoy playing a role in a group of champions.
• Choose to master every skill. Approach every new field of play with the desire to be great at it, with the expectation you will master it. When you're learning how to cook, when you're learning how to drive a manual transmission vehicle, when you're learning to speak German, treat it like you're walking onto the field of competition and that you'll come out champion.
• Identify the gold ring. If you've narrowed in on a set of skills and natural abilities, what is your ultimate goal? What will make you a champion? What will make you satisfied? Set a goal in mind and start yourself in working toward it.
• Being a champion is partly a list of achievements, but even more so a state of mind. Being a champion has to do with knowing–really knowing–that you're the best at what you do. Winning the National Book Award might be a great achievement, but does that really mean that writer is the best?
• Being a champion student might mean getting your grades up to at least Bs–something that might've seemed impossible at one point. Maybe being a champion worker means that you show up early and stay late and can walk with the confidence that you're great at what you do. Find your championship and define the terms.

Part 2

Training to Win

• Become a student of the game. A chess champion studies opening strategies and finds new and creative ways to defend them. A champion football player exhausts himself in the front yard doing bunny hops to improve his speed and agility, instead of playing Madden on Xbox. A champion chemist forgets to eat dinner because the new issue of Science is too compelling. A champion lives and breathes the field for which they have talent.
• Study the competition and study your competitors. Professional athletes devote countless hours each week to studying film of their next week's opponents, dissecting the strategies the other team will employ, the techniques they'll use, and the abilities of the athletes. Businessmen at all levels make a point of studying the sales strategies and the product quality of their competitors as a way of improving their own.
• Find great teachers and learn as much as you can from them. For every Michael Jordan there is a Phil Jackson. For every Messi a Maradona. Champions need great coaches, teachers, and motivators to keep them succeeding at a high level. If you're going to be a champion, you'll need help along the way.
• Athletes should consult good exercise trainers and coaches, as well as good weightlifting trainers, fitness and rehab doctors, and often diet coaches to stay fit and healthy.
• Look for coaches that you can build a relationship with on a personal level to make your training as enjoyable as possible. If you look forward to sessions with your coach, you'll be a better and more receptive student.
• Learn to take negative feedback and motivate you to improve. If a coach tells you that you're doing drills like a grandmother, you could collapse and complain, or you could kick it into high gear. Even if you were working hard, is it such a bad thing to go faster? If you're a champion, you'll say no.
• Develop a strict training routine. If you want to be a champion–to be the absolute best at what you do–it's important to devote time to training for that championship each and every day. You need to actively work on building skills, studying the game, and making yourself the best. Train like a champion and you'll be a champion.
• For athletes, it's important to give equal weight to studying strategy, building fundamentals, and playing the game to have fun and learn to get better in competition. More specific instructions can be found for specifics sports below:
• Basketball
• Football
• Soccer
• Tennis
• Swimming
• Golf
• For other fields, it's important to devote time and active effort in improving your skills. Depending on your field, this could be drastically different, but some important ways to improve your mind and your interpersonal abilities. You can learn other essential skills of the champion, translatable to all fields, below:
• Networking
• Self-Promotion
• Self-Esteem
• Public Speaking
• Building Relationships
• Train your body and your mind. Champions should cultivate positive thinking, confidence, and intelligence in regard to their work. Make it a priority to not only be a physically talented specimen on the field, but to be a smart worker and a reliable strategies, whatever your skill-set.
• If you're an athlete, read up on biographies and strategy guides about your sport. The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a military guide, is a popular reading choice among hyper-competitive athletes. Even when you're not working on improving your physical skills, work on your competitive edge.
• If you're a champion of the mind, train your body as well. Exercise can help improve memory retention, energy, and overall health, making you a better version of yourself. If you spend all day working indoors, it's especially important to get out and get moving to keep your mind fit.
• Find ways to motivate yourself. Eventually, you'll hit a wall. All champions struggle to find good reasons to get up every day, sore the day before, and hit the weight room, or head back to the office. It's hard to be great day after day. That's what real champions–the best of the best–find ways to stay motivated and keep themselves one step ahead. It's an essential part of training to be a champion.[1]Lots of champions are big fans of using motivational music to psych themselves up before big games, or even practice. Heavy music with a big beat tends to be popular among athletes, making metal, hip-hop, and dance music iPod staples. Get "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes going in your headphones and try not to hit the gym with energy and enthusiasm. It's impossible.
• Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players to ever play the game, used to tape newspaper articles and quotes from opposing players that said negative things about him in his locker. Every time he got ready for practice and games, he would look over the negativity to psych himself up and light his competitive fires. If opposing players hadn't said anything negative, he would make stuff up. That's how much of a champion he was.
• Discipline yourself and reward yourself. Champions make self-improvement a priority, and while they might work alongside coaches, trainers, and other teachers alone the way, are driven from within to succeed, not by the opinions of others. It's important to put a system of punishment and reward in place to get yourself to champion-status.
• Pact and FitLife are recent innovations in exercise motivation. By entering your fitness regimen into the system, these exercise trackers will punish you by taking money out of your account if you fail to exercise according to your initial plan.
• Champions need to blow off steam more than just about anybody. Find a way to unwind after you work hard training, to keep your mind sharp and relaxed. Lots of athletes enjoy video games, music, and reading after a long day of training.

Part 3

Being a Good Sport

• Expect to win. Every time you step onto the field, whether it be the office or the playing field, you need to go in expecting that you're going to walk out having done your best and proven your worth as a champion. Visualize yourself winning and doing what will be necessary to be the best and believe that it will happen.
• Eliminate mental distractions when you're competing. When you're on the field, it's not the time to worry about your partner at home, whether or not you're going to be able to score concert tickets this weekend, or where you're going to party after the game. Focus on what needs to happen to win.
• To help with your confidence, you have to train effectively. When you're about to compete, it isn't the time to be wondering if you could have worked your reps in the gym better, or if you could have watched more tape of the opposing team. Train hard and you'll know that you're at your best.
• Leave it all on the field. When you compete, you need to compete like a champion, which means saving absolutely nothing of yourself in the tank. All your energy, all your heart, all your soul, all your competitive fire needs to explode from you during the course of the contest. You can't be left wondering if you could have chased down that shot along the baseline a little faster, or if you could have been a little more energetic in your presentation. A champion shouldn't have to wonder.[2]All athletes and champions of the mind have to confront exhaustion at some point. Losers pack it in, close up the shop, and cash out. Champions dig deep and find a little bit more where it seems like there shouldn't be any. Work hard in your training regimen and you'll have enough endurance and stamina to see the competition through.
• Win gracefully and lose graciously. When the whistle blows and the game is over, an athlete can reveal the grace and humility of a champion, or the childish behavior of a loser, regardless of the outcome.
• If you win, treat it like business as usual. It's ok to celebrate, but you should act as if you've been there before. It shouldn't be a big surprise if you expected to win in the first place. Compliment the opposition and give credit where credit is due.
• If you lose, it's likely that you'll be feeling frustrated and annoyed. If you're dealing with a sore winner, too, it can make it a lot worse. Don't sling mud, make excuses, or throw a tantrum, though. Shake your head, take your licks, and look to the next contest. Learn from losses and use them to motivate yourself to improve.
• Give credit where credit is due. We've all seen the gloating self-absorbed athlete bragging after making a game-winning play, forgetting the fact that teammates were there contributing the entire game. Winning champions share the credit and praise their fellow competitors, coaches, and teammates. Even if you're feeling particularly proud of what you accomplished on the field, find something to praise about others who competed. Staying humble and showing perspective is an absolutely essential part of being a great champion.
• We all like to think of ourselves and self-starters who are responsible for our own success, but try to widen perspective to see the bigger picture. Your success as a champion is dependent upon your teachers, your parents, even the people working the concessions stand, or driving the bus you use to commute are contributing to your success. Don't forget that, big shot.
• Take responsibility for success and for failure. Before you compete, treat it like your responsibility to win. Take on the burden of success and decide that it will be your fault if you don't come through as the champion. Put yourself in a position to win. If you don't come through, put your name on it and stand up to the blow-back like a champion.
• Only you can decide whether or not you're a success. It might be good enough for you to have made a personal best on the golf course, regardless of what Tiger Woods has to say about it.
• Never throw any of your teammates, coworkers, or fellow competitors "under the bus." Don't call someone out for blameworthy activity, even if it's deserved. Doing so is classless, a sign of pettiness. Share in the blame, if something went wrong, and act like a champion.

Part 4

Carrying Yourself Like a Champion

• Celebrate wins, big and small. Treat every occasion as a chance to celebrate your achievement. Very competitive champions are competitive all the time. Michael Jordan was known for his ruthless games of playground pig, a kids' game. Rafael Nadal, when injured, picked up high-stakes competitive poker to keep up the competitive energy while recovering from surgery. Competing regularly is an important way to keep your competitive edge sharp. As a champion, take the time to Approach every game of checkers like the Super Bowl. Approach every day like a gift.
• Take the time to celebrate your victories. In an effort to appear stoic, some champions can go too far in the opposite direction, accepting their accolades with grim solemnity. Cut loose every now and then! You're a boss!
• Surround yourself with competitive winners. Champions want to align themselves with fellow champions. Don't waste your time hanging out with people who aren't willing to put in the effort and the investment into their own success. Spend time with the greats.
• Strive to be part of a "power couple," a couple that supports each other in mutual success. Power couples are made up of two motivated and ambitious people. Think Jay-Z and Beyonce, or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Power couples are made of champions.
• try to befriend champions from different fields than your own. It might be too difficult to be best friends with the best-ever masseuse in your town, when you're second-best. Cormac McCarthy, mega-acclaimed author, claims to never associate with other writers, preferring the company of scientists.
• Be an optimist. Your mind and outlook have an incredible impact on your performance. All champions have positive, unstoppable attitudes that contribute to winning and staying on top. Think positively in all things and look for the best in the people around you. Seek to bring out that better quality in others and focus on the positives.
• In golf, long slumps are called "the yips," and have been clinically verified as a psycho-physical phenomenon related to receptive tasks, the sort of which are found in sports. The effect of the mind on the ability of the body to produce is profound, making positivity an important quality to cultivate in champions.
• Find champion role models. It's important for champions to look up to winners and model themselves accordingly. How did Muhammad Ali train for big fights? How does Tom Brady like to spend his off-season? What did William Faulkner like to do for fun? Study the greats and learn everything you can about them to learn more about properly applying yourself toward your own championship.
• Find role models in your own field and role models in other fields to learn unexpected pearls of wisdom. Kanye West constantly compares himself to the innovative geniuses of history in interviews: Einstein, Henry Ford, and Mozart are names he constantly drops in comparison to himself, as inspirations.
• An old Buddhist saying: When you see the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. Champions want to conquer their heroes. If you really look up to your track coach, who has had the state record for 25 years, make it your goal to best it. Keep working until you do.
• Find the next gold ring. As you climb the ladder and continue collecting championships, try to diversify your palate of competitions. What else are you great at? Where's the next challenge? A champion constantly seeks competition in all things.
• Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, and Russell Simmons are all hip-hop impresarios who've cultivated multi-million dollar business empires, though they started by just wanting to be the best MCs. Now, the impact of their various businesses on style, culture, and music is enormous. They've become champions' champions.
• Champions remember that success is a decision, not a gift.

They decide what they want and, even more importantly, why they want it. To quote a wise friend, "Look deep inside yourself and find out what your passion really is." Yes, you might be worried about failing (or even just not being able to remove your wet suit), but face those fears. Champions try.

We should all have an ambitious, yet realistic, vision that inspires and excites us.

• Champions document and communicate their goals.

Tell your friends, make it your screen saver or stick Post-it Notes everywhere. And set intermediate goals along the way, celebrating when you reach them!

• Champions make choices.

Mediocrity is a choice. Excellence is a choice. Seeking excellence in every part of your life is a conscious decision -- so I would urge you all to do your best at whatever you do, whether it's walking the dog, loading the dishwasher, running or listening to a friend in need.

(Keep in mind that excessive doughnut consumption is probably something we should all choose not to excel at.)

Behind-the-scenes: Training for a triathlon

• Champions have a plan.

Reaching the finish line of any race requires a focused, detailed strategy. As an athlete I arm myself with information -- about different training methods, nutrition, my competitors, race courses, how to avoid chafing. You name it, I've read about and (in the case of Vaseline) applied it, and then have used the info to devise my training program.

• Champions tackle their weaknesses and strengths.

They view training holistically; swim/bike/run sessions are not more or less important than nutrition, strength training, muscle massages, relaxation and life balance.

• Champions lean on others. A champion knows he or she is not an island. It was hard for me, as a fiercely independent person, to depend on others, but I couldn't have achieved what I did without support. The word "competitor" is taken from a Latin root meaning to "seek together" -- with help I learned to dig deeper and discover reserves I never knew existed.

Sometimes, you just have to lose control

• Champions accept change. If you risk nothing, then you risk everything. For me, it wasn't simply about winning -- it was about being the best I could be. That meant being prepared to assess, adapt, evolve and even take calculated risks. This might include trying a new coach, a new training location or a new technique. "If you always do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got." That doesn't mean blindly adopting every new innovation -- sometimes simple, time-honored techniques are best -- but the key is to avoid getting permanently stuck in a rut.
• Champions prepare for the worst and hope for the best. In an ideal world, everything goes as planned. Our Fit Nation triathletes-to-be will wake up full of beans, be injury-free and the sun will shine during every ride. But that's a utopia. I have sunk in the swim, had bike failures, catapulted over crash barriers and relieved my GI tract in bushes. It's these mishaps and mistakes that help us learn and grow. They help us become slightly wiser, slightly stronger, slightly bolder and much more determined.

Triathlete conquers first time in ocean

• Champions keep things in perspective. Win, lose or sink, triathlon shouldn't define you. Your emotions should never be solely wedded to a specific outcome. The journey to Malibu is what matters for the CNN Fit Nation Team. If they have given it their all, then they've already won.
• Champions stay positive. There are occasions when even the most cup-overflowing individuals get down in the dumps -- but an ability to trade "I can't," for "I can," to believe in yourself and all that you are is what makes true champions.

Most people are inconsistent. They set a goal or challenge, identify what is required to achieve it, do a few of the actions or not at all, and then eventually quit or move onto something else.

Take exercising as an example. Did you know that gym memberships go up significantly in January of each year? This is because lots of people set a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight and then proceed to purchase a membership at their local gym.

Any of you gym bros out there are well aware of the annoying “Resolutioners” who use all of your equipment without a clue as to what they are doing and leave by February 1st.

What happened, you may ask?

The Real Problem

Those people who stopped going failed to remain consistent. They tried to adopt a new habit that would enable them to achieve their goal of becoming more physically fit, but they didn’t have the discipline to maintain that habit consistently.

They say it takes at least two to three solid weeks to adopt a new habit, or ritual. Unfortunately the average person doesn’t stay consistent enough for those two to three weeks to create the initial habit, or regular ritual.

Consistency is vital for long term success

Remaining consistent in achieving their personal goals is what makes an average person become someone great. They can keep specific habits and rituals done on a daily basis, to achieve their given milestones and goals over a week, months and even years.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan, who is often referred to as the greatest basketball player of all time, practiced the fundamentals consistently every day for several years before he made it to the NBA. Even as he was playing at a professional level, he practiced the same drills and movements that he practiced for years, over and over and over again.

He was so consistent for such a long period of time that his movements on the court became instinct; almost second nature. He could perform at such an incredibly high level, a level that most would describe as unworldly, because he was so consistent.

It’s Not all About Talent

The average person mistakenly believes that it is an abnormal, almost magical talent that makes someone successful, but this is not true at all. Behind every success story is a remarkable story of remaining consistent.

Specific behaviors repeated consistently for extended periods of time have a major effect on the level of success you will inherit. Likewise, you may have all the amazing talent in the world, but if you don’t remain consistent, you won’t reap the rewards of that talent.

What Makes a Champion?

The Five Characteristics that Define Champions

Ask anyone in the sport of fitness to name a champion and two come definitively to mind: Rich Fronig and Sara Sigmundsdottir. Ask those same people to describe what makes these two athletes champions, (titles aside), and the answers become more nebulous. Body type, maybe? Mental strength, possibly? Confidence, perhaps? The question of what makes a champion is clearly a gray area, but it’s less so now it’s become a topic of interest amongst Psychologists. In fact, the latest research into Champions, “Super Champions, Champions, and Almosts: Important Differences and Commonalities on the Rocky Road,” suggests it comes down to five things.

Champions have a fierce desire to overcome challenges:

• Of the 56 athletes interviewed from a wide range of disciplines including: soccer, rowing, skiing, and combat sports, the UK researchers uncovered every single one had experienced a number of setbacks and obstacles. That in itself wasn’t unique, the Super Champions and Champions, however, tended to face the challenges head on, with a desire to learn from them and come back stronger, while the less successful athletes were surprised they were experiencing setbacks at all.

Champions are constantly setting new goals and challenges:

• For many athletes competing in the sport of fitness reaching regionals is their end-of-season goal, which once accomplished, sees them, rest-up, satisfied with their achievement. According to the research, Champions never rest on their laurels: once one goal is reached, they’ve immediately set the next one.

Champions are intrinsically motivated:

• Rich Froning famously put his success down to, “not necessarily that I like to win, but I hate losing more.” It was a throw away comment but it stacks up with the research: champions are highly motivated, not only to play their sport to win (or not to lose) but to do whatever training it takes to get there. In contrast, less successful athletes were marked out by their love of the game, but their lack of commitment to their training.

Champions visualize and reflect:

• Visualization has long been a part of elite sports. Al Oerter, a four-time Olympic discus champion, and the tennis star Billie Jean King were among the first to publically speak of it in the 1960s. And with good reason: it works. Certainly, that’s what the research suggests. Super Champions and Champions all spent considerable time visualizing meeting their goal, while also reflecting on every detail and metric of their training to get there.

Champions take ownership of their training and performance:

• Anyone who’s ever had a pushy parent or coach knows that pushiness only goes so far to driving ones desire to improve in a sport. Interestingly, this is borne out by the research. Super Champions and Champions all reported that their coaches were helpful in setting their training agenda, managing expectations and advocating the long game and that this kind of gentle support encouraged them to become self-directing and self-motivated which made all the difference when it came to long term commitment to their sport.

How to Think Like a Champion: Three Tips to Winning Ways

Discover the simple mental sport strategies that will propel you to victory.

Do you want to be a champion? Do you want to be the greatest? If you’re reading this article, I assume that you probably do. Well, me too! Then the real question becomes, how do we get there? As a sport psychologist and someone interested in peak performance in general I am constantly looking for good answers to this question.

So how do champions think? Champions think gold. They never aim for silver, nor do they settle for it. They are always on a personal mission to perform at their best. In his book, Jim lays a lot of stress on the idea that mental conditioning is key, using the analogy of stacking blocks to build a castle. Here are the building blocks you need to arrange in order to become a champion:

Technical: Your mechanics, your coordination.

Tactical: The strategies you use to outmaneuver your opponent on the court, field, etc.

Physical: Strength, stamina and conditioning.

Mental: – Your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions. Note that this is different from Tactics—it doesn’t relate to the mental techniques you use on your opponents, but upon yourself. It’s more about psyching yourself up than psyching someone else out.

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Coaches and athletes focus overwhelmingly on the first three blocks. But Jim argues that if the mental building block isn’t in place, then the entire stack will tip over under pressure, and victory will evade you.

So here are some Champion’s Mind tips about being a Champion on your big day of performance:

Make practice as close to the big day as you can. Our intensity level is often too low during practice . Try to get the most out of your practice by devoting the same intensity to your practice that you do to your performance. Make it as close as possible to actual performance conditions.

Minimize the magnitude of the big day. In fact, don’t even think of it as a big day. Consider it a “fancy practice”. Jim talks about athletes turning on their “game face”. His advice: get rid of game face. Just bring your face, which is always game-ready.

Roll with the punches when you lose. What makes a champion a champion? Not just their skill at achieving victory, but their resilience in springing back from defeat. Champions have thick skins. Are they devastated by defeat? Absolutely. But are they discouraged? No! Champions relish the opportunity to perform to confront adversity. They lose, they lick their wounds, they come back, and they win in style. If you practice thinking about yourself with that level or resilience, so can you

In Conclusion

The secret to becoming a champion at anything is not a matter of possessing remarkable talent but the continuation of being consistent over and over again. The secret to success and extraordinary results, are the repeated actions of doing the right things daily, weekly, over and over.