How determined are you to achieve your health and wellness goals? Are you willing to be relentless? So often we decide that we want to “get healthy” but when the going gets tough, we bail. I challenge you to be formidable.
Olympians understand this mindset and they have common characteristics that help them achieve their goals. Twelve of these traits have been identified and they are as follows (1):
1-The ability to cope with and control anxiety. This includes the ability to control the physical symptoms of anxiety such as “butterflies in the stomach”, worry, concentration disruption and overall anxiety. The ability to control these symptoms will naturally signal the brain and body that everything is okay and allow stellar performance.
2-Confidence to always give your all to the process and work relentlessly to improve.
3-Mental toughness as it pertains to resilience, perseverance and the ability to successfully cope with adversity.
4-Sport intelligence- This refers to studying your sport or event and understanding how it works. You should be a quick study.
5-The ability to focus and block out distractions. Focus on what you can control and don’t be easily distracted. There is always something that you can control and improve. Work on that.
6-Competitiveness. There are three parts.
1- Intensity-Pursue your goals with your whole heart.
2-Aggression-Push hard.
3-Being a fighter-When it gets really tough, you just hit it harder.
7-Having a hard work ethic that is exhibited by being self-motivated and driven.
8-Have the ability to set and work towards specific performance goals by planning and preparing for your health and fitness program. Develop a clear strategy to perform your very best.
9-Coachability This is the ability to receive instruction and accept constructive criticism without taking it personally or getting upset.
10-Hopefulness as defined by having a set way of setting, seeking and achieving goals. As David says, “Trust the process and you will see results.”
11-Optimism-A positive mindset that positive things will happen. Optimistic people confront challenges with confidence and persistence.
12-The right kind of perfectionism-There are two kinds, maladaptive, or perfectionism that sets ridiculous goals that cannot be obtained and adaptive, which is positively linked with winning. It is simply what David says when he says, “Be the best that YOU can be.” I wrote an article, “Perfectionism or Excellence” that discusses these two types of perfectionism. One sets you up for failure and the other insures success.
See to it that you are doing everything that you can to be your best, then you will be formidable.
Love this, live this.
You have taught these precepts to me, David. Thank you!
My pleasure.