What is a Championship Mindset
What is a Championship Mindset
To be a champion, through a person’s lens, is getting the most out of themselves. There is no comparison to others. There isn’t an accomplishment of a crazy feat. It is just taking everything that a person can do to be the absolute best version of themself. Being the best version of oneself is what it truly means to be a champion.
1. Create A Vision
Self-help gurus all say to create a vision that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. But oftentimes that leaves you wondering, “What does that even mean?” The first step you have to do is sit down and be real with yourself. Look in the mirror and say, “If everything went perfectly to plan, fell into place, and went perfectly as possible, what does that look like?” Are you sitting on a front porch in a rocking chair with your spouse and four beautiful children?
Establish that hypothetical perfect place in life or, most likely in your case, in athletics so that you can start to work backward from that vision to create a plan. The first key is establishing your vision, putting yourself there mentally, living that moment, feeling the emotions you have deep down inside internally, and then your vision will start to feel as if it is real.
It is important to find and have substantial people in your life. Think about your parents, grandparents, or a mentor. Think about if your vision will make them proud. Not everything is about making other people proud, but when you have a vision with a goal and it is interpreted that it will make others proud you are probably on the right path.
When I dropped out of college, I felt like I was meandering through space with no clear vision. I was lost. Fortunately for me, I had a great support system. I had a family who was supportive of me leaving college. I was able to come home, hitchhike across Canada, and find my internal motivation and vision. I identified that I want people to like me, win, and be on journeys with other people to have great experiences. All of that helped me to identify what my long-term vision was; it just took time for me to step back and learn about myself, how the world ticks, and where I fit inside that giant puzzle piece. Once my vision was established, I was able to work backward and work toward my long-term goal.
All I’m saying is you want to figure out what your perfect place might be, establish it as your vision, try to experience the emotions you would have while realizing that vision, and then work backward.
2. Be Consistent
Once you establish your vision, you can meet or find some expert, like a mentor or coach, or consultant, who can help you lay out your blueprint to follow and lead to achieving your vision. Laying out the blueprint of your vision will make you realize that it will take YEARS to accomplish, which will lead to a better consistency. I like to say that too many people want 5-minute fixes for 3-year solutions. Being someone with a champion mindset, you aren’t someone who wants quick fixes. You are someone who will put in years of consistency to make your vision a reality.
Once you identify the years of work it takes to accomplish the vision, the buy-in to consistency is a must. How many days a week are you willing to work towards that vision? Start with 4 days a week of working towards that vision. Then bump that up to 5 days a week. Eventually, you will realize that you are likely going to be working towards that vision 6 to 7 days a week. Your vision will become infectious and it will haunt your mind like your favorite nightmare.
The 6 to 7 days of work will become your passion. Because of your consistency and willingness to learn, you will start to meet other people with a similar drive and vision. You will start to surround yourself with other people that are like-minded and whose goals align with your own. Next thing you know, your consistency will help you work forward to realizing your long-term vision.
3. Failure Happens, Learn From It
One reason why strength training is so great for success is how it is related and intertwined with failure. If you fail, and you fail again, and again, you will notice that your character is being built stronger, tougher, leaner, and more capable. Yes, the failures may pile up and you may perceive them as negative, but that is the thing with failure–everyone looks at failure in a negative light, but in all reality failure is a lesson in which you learn a valuable lesson.
People who don’t learn from failures, instead view everything as a negative. That isn’t you. You look at failure as a life lesson that can lead to improvement. One thing John Meadows said to me when I felt like a business failure was, “Dane, go hard on YouTube for two straight years and look at everything as a learning situation. Try to learn, learn, and learn again, and don’t blame anyone else. Learn and improve. Make your processes better in marketing, business, and even in training.” Some of the best advice I am honored to share with you.
A key factor when failing is to take a step back and figure out why that failure happened, try to create a better process, and then learn again. Put the lessons you learn into action. And of course, failure will happen again. But you’ve been down this road so you take a step back, learn, and build something new because you have a champion mindset.
The earlier you embrace discomfort, the quicker you will learn from various situations. This will help you prepare for other situations in the future, like doing 100 reps in a preacher curl, so that now you are more adapted to specific situations. You might learn how to forecast negative situations occurring to plan for the future. This will help you handle the stress of failure better because it is no longer negative.
4. Invest Long Term
You have your vision of being a state champion as a high school athlete. You know you have to invest nearly a half decade into achieving that goal. For a kid who is 13 or 14, that is a long investment. Sharing that vision with a person or people you trust fully can remind you of the difficulty but support you and provide checkpoints along the way. Your long-term investment will lead to long-term growth.
When you invest long-term, you will learn about your vision. You will look into methods, and different resources, meet people, and it will make everything about your vision that much better. Your investment in your long-term journey pays dividends.
5. Step Forward
Arguably the most important step is that you take that step forward every single day. You work towards your vision. You work towards your long-term goal. You are constantly moving forward.
The first step involves you waking up and then showing up. You can lay out what you will execute for the day to feed your goal. You then execute your tasks regularly, revisiting your work at the end of the day to reflect on failures, accomplishments, and what can be improved upon. You then rinse, wash, and repeat.
The constant, chronic execution is what leads to the execution of whatever your vision may be. The vision can be 3 years off, 5 years off, or a decade away, but if you are constantly focused and working towards your vision, the daily baby steps you take every single day will add up. All of a sudden your vision is a lot closer. Your dream is a lot closer. That carrot dangling out in front of you becomes more of a reality.
Consistency is key. You must understand that you have to show up every single day. And then when you show up, you have to focus on ways you can improve. You have to understand it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time.
Recap
Coach Julian Robinson says all the time, “There is a journey of 1000 miles and that journey of 1000 miles starts with that first step.”
So ask yourself, “Am I willing to take that first step to become a champion?”
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Yo, It's Dane
Welcome to the Garage Strength Blog, where it is my goal to provide you with the experience and knowledge I've gained in the strength and conditioning world over many years of learning from both successes and failures. I train elite-level athletes in a multitude of sports from the high school to professional levels, already producing 5 Olympics and 30+ National Champions. If you want to be the next champion I train, check out my strength programs below!
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