Are You Setting Yourself Up to Fail?
How many times have you heard someone say they are not 100%. Either they haven’t prepared properly, or they have a nagging injury, or something they ate is making them feel queasy. Whatever.
When you hear other athletes mouthing such excuses, you need to ask yourself what they’re doing. More importantly, ask yourself if you ever do it, and if so, why? Be honest. Because you could be giving yourself a reason not to win, or you could be excusing yourself for losing. (Read what’s your motivation?)
Whenever you have a reason to lose or an excuse to lose, you will lose. By deciding that you are less than 100%, you are setting yourself up to fail. But you can fight back. You can banish all the excuses. How? Follow these motivational tips.
Use your competitors’ excuses to feed your positivity
Listen to your opponents. If they aren’t sounding confident, let that feed you. If they are making excuses, they are nervous. Use their nervous energy to pump up your own confidence.
Remove opportunity for excuses
Prepare yourself beforehand. Recall all the hard work you’ve done and all the things that have gone well. Turn every negative thought on its head. Remember every positive event leading up to this point. Mentally work your way through all your training efforts, your pre-season, everything that prepared you to perform.
Dare to fail
This is the big step, the real crux of the thought process. I dare you to leave no excuses, no reason for failure. I dare you not only to let everyone know you’re in peak condition, but that you are 120% ready to compete. Can you tell everyone you are 120% ready and still get beat?
In short, I dare you to be prepared to give it your all and still come up short. Until you do, you will not succeed. You need to be absolutely certain in your mind that you have trained harder than your competitors, prepared better, put in more effort, more sweat. You know in your mind that you should beat them. Your family and friends know it. Even your competitors know it. You are confident, with no fear of failure. I dare you.
When Michael Johnson ran in the Olympics in Atlanta, the expectations of the entire country weighed on his shoulders. He didn’t shy away from it. He embraced it. He actually did more than that. He took steps to further increase the pressure. He stated that he was ready. He had gold spikes made. There were no excuses. He took them all away.
Say to yourself and everyone else, “I’m 120% ready and I’m here to win.” I dare you. See what happens.
Want more? 10 tips to pick yourself up after a defeat and NBA Rookie Jimmer Fredette on Learning From Losing.)
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Are You Setting Yourself Up to Fail?
How many times have you heard someone say they are not 100%. Either they haven’t prepared properly, or they have a nagging injury, or something they ate is making them feel queasy. Whatever.
When you hear other athletes mouthing such excuses, you need to ask yourself what they’re doing. More importantly, ask yourself if you ever do it, and if so, why? Be honest. Because you could be giving yourself a reason not to win, or you could be excusing yourself for losing. (Read what’s your motivation?)
Whenever you have a reason to lose or an excuse to lose, you will lose. By deciding that you are less than 100%, you are setting yourself up to fail. But you can fight back. You can banish all the excuses. How? Follow these motivational tips.
Use your competitors’ excuses to feed your positivity
Listen to your opponents. If they aren’t sounding confident, let that feed you. If they are making excuses, they are nervous. Use their nervous energy to pump up your own confidence.
Remove opportunity for excuses
Prepare yourself beforehand. Recall all the hard work you’ve done and all the things that have gone well. Turn every negative thought on its head. Remember every positive event leading up to this point. Mentally work your way through all your training efforts, your pre-season, everything that prepared you to perform.
Dare to fail
This is the big step, the real crux of the thought process. I dare you to leave no excuses, no reason for failure. I dare you not only to let everyone know you’re in peak condition, but that you are 120% ready to compete. Can you tell everyone you are 120% ready and still get beat?
In short, I dare you to be prepared to give it your all and still come up short. Until you do, you will not succeed. You need to be absolutely certain in your mind that you have trained harder than your competitors, prepared better, put in more effort, more sweat. You know in your mind that you should beat them. Your family and friends know it. Even your competitors know it. You are confident, with no fear of failure. I dare you.
When Michael Johnson ran in the Olympics in Atlanta, the expectations of the entire country weighed on his shoulders. He didn’t shy away from it. He embraced it. He actually did more than that. He took steps to further increase the pressure. He stated that he was ready. He had gold spikes made. There were no excuses. He took them all away.
Say to yourself and everyone else, “I’m 120% ready and I’m here to win.” I dare you. See what happens.
Want more? 10 tips to pick yourself up after a defeat and NBA Rookie Jimmer Fredette on Learning From Losing.)