The top notch salespeople, athletes, and entrepreneurs design their own road map for getting them from point A to point B. They almost always have a mentor, hire a personal or business coach, or become part of a Master Mind Group. It seems that with a plan and with the appropriate support team, we are well on our way to our destination. It then becomes all about taking action and getting desired results. But there are many who don’t get their desired results after hard work and sacrifice. So what is the missing ingredient?
When I was fifteen years old I joined our High School Cross Country team and immediately had success. I had natural endurance from my years of swimming on our schools swim team and I seemed to have had the right mix of slow twitch and fast twitch muscles to be a successful long distance runner. Not only that, I was determined. My friend Brian used to tell me stories about winning local and regional races and having his name in the newspaper. I trained as hard as I could. I had a weight training program for my lower and upper body. Rain or shine, I was at practice and I even ran on Christmas morning in the sleet in New York City. I could not have trained harder or worked harder.
In my senior year, instead of getting faster, I got slower and at least three other runners on the team had faster times for the 2 ½ miles course than I had. Why didn’t I continue to improve? I was only eighteen years old and I still had at least another ten to fifteen years in my running career until I would have reached my peak. I knew this because some of the greatest long distance runners were winning world championships in their late twenties and early thirties.
I also competed on the college Cross Country team with similar results. I kept wondering why my hard training wasn’t producing the results I had hoped for. I had always trained with and kept up with the fastest runners on the team. I could attribute it to bad coaching, over training (that was a factor), or maybe I just didn’t have the physical ability to be a more competitive runner. I discovered the answer myself when I was 28 years old. Although I trained just as hard as anyone else and wanted to win, I didn’t see myself as a winner. The pictures in my mind weren’t matching my desired results. I wasn’t having fun. It was all work and no joy. Not only that, I was terribly tense. Maybe it was the coaching, but I believe that it was primarily the way I saw myself.
When I was 28 and 29 years old, I was an instructor in the Special Forces Underwater Operations Course in Key West, Florida. I was doing a lot of swimming and running and decided to train for 10 Kilometer races. Over the years my attitude changed and I was more relaxed, trained smarter, and saw myself actually winning races – and I did win. In order for me to begin winning, I had to be that person who had a winner’s mindset. I had to visualize myself accepting a gold medal or a victor’s trophy. Once I did that, then everything else fell into place.
In every endeavor, we have to first be the person that is going to win. The steps are Be – Do – Have, not do have be. I had it backwards thinking that I first had to take action, see the results, and then I’ll be the winner. Be the winner first in your mind and you will see how much easier it is to achieve any goal you can imagine.
Do your personal skills get you your desired results? Imagine yourself with the qualities of the person who should be earning, $250,000 a year, publishing a novel, or winning the sporting event. Today, make a list of the skills required for you to achieve the results you are striving for. Then be that person.