Hi, I’m Dre. I am your mindset coach and mentor of change. Today, we look to answer the question, how do you become the champion of your life? You probably noticed I end every video, every article, and every podcast by saying, “continued blessings, on your journey to become the champion of your life”.
If you have ever wondered what I mean when I say this, today is your lucky day. I am going to share with you what it takes to become the champion of your dream life.
- You must believe in yourself
- Be someone’s angel
- Focusing on creating results
- Stop giving into your fears
- Find your superpower
“Champion” origin story
If you have read my book, Champion of Change, then you know it is a reference to my book. It is also a indication of my belief that you need to overcome your fears and self-doubt to truly control your life. It is only by changing your beliefs, that you can change your actions, and change your life.
I want you ultimately to look at yourself as the solution the problems in your life. We are trained by society to look externally. You are told you need to purchase this and that item if you want to feel accomplished and confident. They tell your kids they need to have this career or go to that school to feel successful.
While most people mean well, they are projecting their fears and self-doubt onto you. The truth is, everything you need is right inside of you.
This principle is one of the staples of my coaching practice. It is the idea that it is not about me, but you. You can create the life that you want. I simply offer a little bit of insight and some suggestions based on the priorities you have set.
You are the most outstanding, caring, creative, and courageous person. You are the go-getter, the person who does not accept failure, and the person who does not take no for an answer.
The funny thing is when we have a disagreement, I am often telling you that you can do it and you do not believe me.
1. You must believe in yourself
The foundation of you believing in yourself is tied to your fear of failure. When you are struggling with the fear of failure, then you are probably battling perfectionism. When you fall short of your expectations, you start to believe; this is not meant for me or I messed up again.
Your lack of self-confidence can lead to you procrastinating or never starting your journey to change your life.
Three-steps forward, one-step back
The difficulty with viewing yourself through the standard of perfectionism is you cannot appreciate your growth. Even though you have made great strides towards accomplishing your goal, you are never able to achieve perfection. This can be discouraging and cause you to settle for less than your full potential.
No one enjoys feeling as though they failed, so it is only natural for someone to quit if they always feel like a failure.
With that said, I am definitely someone who says; “reach for the moon, and if you fall short, you will land among the stars. If you only reach for the stars, when you fall short, you will hit the ground”.
The difference and essence of what I am saying is you need to give maximum effort without any concern about the circumstances or difficulties you are going to face. It is okay to be content in outcome, without being content in effort.
For example, if you are trying to be promoted in your company, then you understand that you need to showcase your talents, skills, and leadership acumen.
However, you also know there are only so many people who can be promoted into leadership positions. There are plenty of analysts and team leads, but how many Senior Vice President’s does your company have?
This means more than your ability to be promoted comes into consideration. You may be in a situation where you need to wait for someone to retire to advance in your career.
When you find yourself in these types of situations, you cannot be yourself up regarding the lack of results (SVP promotion). Often times, the results you are holding yourself accountable for have several factors that are outside of your control. Focus on the things that you can control and let go of everything else.
Trust yourself
To believe in yourself requires you to be confident in your abilities. When we lack confidence in ourselves, we often place that confidence in someone or something else. You may be in a relationship where you trust your spouse more than you trust yourself. There are those who feel more comfortable when someone else reviews their work before they present it.
Whatever your method, you are have created a situation where you can work around the lack of confidence you have in yourself. The problem with this method is you are not the hero of your own story.
You need to be the dragon slayer, problem solver, and champion of your life. The best way to turn things around is to give yourself permission to make mistakes. By trusting in yourself to ultimately figure it out, you are not assigning negative values whenever you face a setback.
2. Be someone’s angel
You want to be important to someone else. Not in the sense that you derive your value from someone else’s perception of you. What I am talking about is helping others when the opportunity presents itself.
If you want to be the champion of your life and believe in yourself, there is no better way than by helping others. When you hear others explain how helpful you are and how you changed their life, you will start to remove some of your own false beliefs.
How would you feel about yourself if people were consistently telling you;
- that you are amazing and your help is so timely
- how consider you are,
- how blessed they are to have you in their life
It becomes difficult to believe that you cannot change your life when you keep hearing others tell you how impactful you are in their life.
3. Focus on creating results
Champions are not task driven, but results driven. Consider someone who wants to lose five-pounds. They believe they need to go to the gym three-days a week to accomplish their goal. In this scenario, the task is working out three-days a week and the result is to lose five-pounds.
If you discover you need to get to the gym six-days a week to create the result of losing five-pounds, you will do that. Since you are focused on the result, the outcome is your compass. If you find you only have to go to the gym one-day a week to lose five-pounds, you will happily do that as well.
When you are focused on the result and not the task, you enable yourself to discover innovative ways to accomplish your goals. You could realize improving the way you manage the food you eat allows you to work out less and get the same result. You could change the exercises you use at the gym or join an intramural basketball team on your off days.
When you are focused on the results, you are always looking for ways to improve your ability to achieve them. Those who are focus on tasks rarely explore other options to enact change. They are not incentivized to do so. The goal becomes completing the task. The task is to do to the gym three-days a week, and as long as you achieve that you are satisfied.
As a champion, you want to encourage yourself to be innovative and willing to adjust. The journey to change your life is rarely a straight line.
4. Stop giving into your fears
The birth and fear and self-doubt is inaction. Whenever you stall on changing your life, you are feeding your fear and self-doubt. It is not until you take a little action that you realize everything is okay.
Even if everything did not go as well as you had planned, it does not change the fact that you are still alive and live to fight another day.
As long as you celebrate the small wins, I guarantee you that you will be able to keep building on your momentum. It is not until we start that we start that negative self-talk. Then before you know it, you have procrastinated a couple hours into a couple weeks.
To keep yourself from quitting and losing your progress, keep going. And the best way to keep going is to celebrate your milestones. Do not be stingy. Each small step you take, throw yourself a party of some kind.
You will quickly notice how good you feel every time you work on your goal. This is because you will have transformed your mindset from one of apprehension and overwhelm to one of confidence and excitement.
5. Find your superpower
Did I mention I am a huge comic book and manga fan? Now that you know, you will not surprised that becoming a champion of your life is realizing that you are a superhero.
There are some basics to becoming a superhero. You want to make sure you save the innocent, protect the defenseless, and oh yea, find your superpower.
Do you have flight, super-speed, super-strength, or the ability to shoot lasers from your eyes?
As incredible as that would be, that is probably not your superpower. Your superpower is going to be whatever you excel and enjoy doing. It could be something that contributes to your organization’s growth or it could be something that you enjoy doing in your spare time.
Your superpower could be your attention to detail, ability to communicate effectively, or it could be your leadership acumen. You could be overpowered and have multiple superpowers, but that is not fair to the rest of us. J
You would the likes of Superman in the Justice League movie or Captain Marvel in the next Avengers movie. When you are the “most powerful” hero in your cinematic universe, you are breaking all the rules.
Focus on your strengths
Either way, I want you to focus on locating your strengths and mastering them. You are going to be surprised by how many superpowers you have. You are trained to recognize your weaknesses, but no one likes to talk about their strengths.
Well, consider this your opportunity to do a little “humble” bragging.
What is it that you are crushing it at on a regular basis? What do people need your help doing the most?
Even if you think this superpower does not matter, you are wrong.
I have a couple superpowers myself. I am pretty good at making blueprints that generate a desired result. It is just the way that my mind works.
When I was a kid, my favorite thing to do was put puzzles together. I was so good at them, that I stopped putting individual puzzles together and started combining them. I would put 10 puzzles in one bucket and then I would put them all together. Even as an adult, I spend my time putting five to ten-thousand piece puzzles together. It is just something I am good at and enjoy doing.
My superpower
My superpower is being able to see how everything goes together and then to put it together.
I use to think that everyone could put puzzles together, but I realized that is not the case. I have witnessed people struggle with puzzles. It was as if they were just winging it, without a system or methodology.
Now that you know mine, what is your superpower? What do you enjoy doing? What comes easy to you?
Final thoughts
If you want to change your life, then you are ready to become the champion of your life. The path starts with believing in yourself and ends with your superpower to change the world.
Until next time, continued blessings on your journey to become the champion of your dream life.
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Resource: The Power of Small Wins: Harvard Business Review
I agree.