Success Mechanism Part 3 of 5

Part 1: Creating a success mechanism

Part 2: How books and quotes help forge my self-belief

Part 3: Choosing a Levels of the Game and breaking mental barriers

Levels of The Game

One of my favorite concepts my father taught me was the Levels of the Game. He would use the example of a Linebacker as he worked through examples of incompetent, competent, very competent, and extremely competent.?This resonated deeply with me, and the more I was introduced to situations requiring higher levels of competence, the more effectively I could set my personal standard for success. I started developing levels of the game in my mind and noticed how those around me performed. What was my standard of competence/performance going to be?

The?incompetent?Linebacker struggles to remember plays and is constantly caught off guard. The offense runs right over this Linebacker on almost every play. Their anticipation of the hike is a constant battle, leaving them unsure whether to drop back, blitz, or look for a block. Their physical weakness is evident, as any offensive player can quickly shake them off, leading to easy gains.?

The?competent?Linebacker, a solid team player, demonstrates the potential for growth and improvement. They meet the play at the line of scrimmage and stop it most of the time. With a firm grasp of their plays and the ability to anticipate the hike, this Linebacker is learning to read offenses and adapt to the ball, sometimes blocking the ball, creating disruption, or causing an interception. Offenses look for weaknesses in other players to take advantage elsewhere.?

The?very competent?Linebacker is a force to be reckoned with. They are in the backfield before the opponent gets a play-off. Plays are called because they fear the Linebacker's skills, speed, and strength. When contact is made, the offensive player is stopped and pushed back five yards. Plays are remembered and executed with precision. At this level, the Linebacker exerts so much pressure that plays are disrupted, and the Linebacker can read the offense so well that the offense makes mistakes.?

The?extremely competent?Linebacker plays with an offensive mindset. This animal quickly moves in the backfield, sacking the quarterback, making an early tackle, blocking a pass, or causing a fumble. A whole chapter in the offensive playbook is written explicitly for this Linebacker to react to where they line up. They have a highly tuned situational awareness that anticipates any offensive shift. So much pressure and chaos are created that offenses lose momentum and fear the next hit. To this Linebacker, every play is an offensive play, and they fully intend to capture the ball and create opportunities for their team to score. Ray Lewis was this animal.

Boot camp became a perfect test bed to develop my levels of the game and decide at which level I was going to perform. I competed in soccer and spent time in the gym in my youth, but boot camp allowed me to perform at a high level and be rewarded. I was promoted to Master at Arms and was one of four sailors to pass my prospective program's Physical Screening Test (PST). I evaluated my peers' performance against my levels of the game to find others in my company operating at the same performance level. All the guys I spent time with during boot camp successfully graduated from their training pipelines.

After boot camp, I went to Weapons Technician 'A' School. In a new environment, I developed new levels of the game and a new personal standard due to the new academic requirements. I was awarded student of the month and graduated as a distinguished graduate with a 97.9 final grade.

At Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training, I again developed a levels of the game due to the new physical, mental, and academic requirements. With a high attrition rate due to students dropping on request (DOR), injuries, and performance failures, I had to challenge my implementation of levels of the game. Honestly, I had to up my game. At BUD/S, competent was not good enough. I literally had to reassess the requirements to excel on an evolution-by-evolution basis.

On some evolutions, I was strong and very competent came relatively easy, but it was BUD/S, and they mastered the art of making anything really suck. Anything in the water, like the time ocean swims and most pool evolutions, I crushed. On others, I had to give my absolute all to fight my way into a very competent range. For instance, the O course and most conditioning runs crushed me. I sure didn't reach very competent in everything. On my best day, I hit extremely competent on a few evolutions, and on my worst day, I was deep in competent. My personal standard was to strive to be very competent in every evolution. I had a performance goal and gave my very best. The result was graduating and heading to SEAL Team, where the levels of the game were redrawn.

With my success mechanism in place, I succeeded in getting through SEAL training and achieving many other accomplishments throughout my life. I had activated my success mechanism through visualization for over a year before I even got to BUD/S. In my mind, I had already experienced Hell Week, and the evolutions I knew existed. I did not know about the full program, and plenty was unknown. But I had prepared physically and mentally. I knew I was the man I needed to be and believed I would graduate. The rest I adapted to and grew into being a successful BUD/S student as the need presented itself.

This process served me and my team well in my last role as Vice President of Production and will serve me again in my new role with Finder Software Solutions in business development. This process alleviates stress and confusion by providing a framework for excellence and continual improvement. The description of the behaviors at each level is adjustable and adaptable depending on the need and the desired performance.

Breaking Mental Barriers

Breaking mental barriers was a life-changing topic that my father would teach me, using Roger Bannister's incredible story as an example. On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister ran a 3-minute, 59.4-second mile and broke through the "four-minute mile" psychological and once-believed physical barrier—recorded times for the one-mile timed run date back to 1850. Over 100 years of limiting beliefs and self-imposed limitations.

Runners were held back by the belief that a sub-four-minute mile was impossible. Bannister's success shattered this mental barrier. His example showed others that it?could?be done. Within a few years, many more runners followed. Today, the number of athletes who have achieved this once 'impossible' feat is over 1755.

The current World Record:?Hicham El Guerrouj, Morocco, 3:43.13, set on July 7, 1999.

So, what happened to the?physical?barrier that prevented humans from running the four-minute mile? Was there a sudden leap in human evolution? No. The?change in thinking?made the difference, and Bannister had shown that breaking the four-minute mile was possible. Often, the barriers we perceive are only barriers in our minds.?

In SEAL training, I had an irrational fear of heights that I did not even know I had. On my first ascent up the 50' Cargo Net on the Obstacle Course, I was paralyzed with fear and did not believe I could climb over. I had to perform some quick mental jujitsu to convince myself to keep moving forward. On the next several trips on the Obstacle Course, I was still afraid of going over the cargo net, but after each successful trip, I became more inoculated.?I started visualizing myself climbing the cargo net before each time Obstacle Course, and I gained confidence with each successful trip over until I didn't even think about it. I had become comfortable climbing over the Cargo Net.

A mental barrier I have recently shattered is that my writing would not be good enough to publish and would be a waste of my time. In my writing, I had mastered the start, made some momentum, and then perfected the stop. I would feel good about my writing, but eventually, I wasn't making the progress I would have liked, so I stopped. I would be ready to start writing again when I had a new and improved idea, got myself all psyched up about it, and began working the keyboard to once again lose direction and run out of steam. Eventually, I would start thinking it wasn't good enough, the writing wasn't ready, or I'd lost energy for the idea.?

What was I afraid of? I feared looking incompetent or not knowing what I was writing about. I was robbing myself of the necessary feedback from putting my work out there. I was not allowing myself to fail so that I could improve. I was protecting my ego from any negative criticism. So what changed? I started changing my thinking about the quality of my writing and ideas, visualizing myself holding my published book and posting my writing for feedback. I gain confidence every time I put out a new post or article and learn from the feedback. I'm using every concept I write about in this series of articles to grow.

I'm continually learning about myself as I take on new challenges. Everyone has limitations and fear of something, and that is life. I choose not to live with limitations and will shatter through them as they are exposed. It's not easy, but it is essential to living life to my full potential.

Hello Trouble

GERBER put out one of the most powerful ads I have seen. The message applies to mental barriers and self-imposed limitations. I love the idea of seeking out trouble. I am proactive and aggressive in seeking out my mental barriers and limitations. I want them to know I am coming and I will find them. Remind them who I am. When I get comfortable, I know it's time to seek out more barriers and limitations. They are out there waiting for me to conquer and shatter them.

I will finish what I started and share my story and ideas. I am the man I need to be to complete my writing; it is time to grow into the writer I need to become to get published by putting my words out for others to consume. Now, I spend my time thinking about what is possible, finding a way to make it possible, or talking myself into doing what I want to or what will benefit my life.?

Part 4: Win at Wimp Junction and Be The Thermostat

Part 5: Win The Day and Conclusion

#DRIVEN #Discipline #Resilience #Initiative #Vision #Efficacy #NeverQuit #Belief #SuccessMechanism