Seven Habits of Highly Successful Athletes

They say a habit takes 21 days to form. That’s three weeks of constant, recurrent, focused activity – or inactivity. The differences between good and bad habits lie in the details, but they both exist as an end to the same means: repetition.

“We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle said, once upon a time. Essentially, we are our habits. For  athletes, those habits determine their game, their success, their production, their relevance. Elite athletes carefully develop the habits that define them well past the 21-day qualifying point.

Most of us aren’t built to be elite athletes, at least not genetically, but our choices are within our control, and can elevate our game at any level. Choosing to adopt these seven habits of successful athletes is a sure-fire way to find success for yourself. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

THE LIST:

1. They set attainable goals and track them

As athletes, we all have ambitious goals. We want to win that 3-on-3 tournament next month. We want to compete in that triathlon at the end of the year. We want to hoist that trophy at the end the season. That victorious moment is a driving force we all share.

Successful athletes have those goals, but they also create their own moments of victory in parallel to their pursuit of the endgame. While they’re training for that championship, they’re simultaneously working toward attainable goals to check off their list.  While they’re training for that marathon, they’re also working toward that six-minute mile. While they’re pursuing that Gold medal, they’re also locking down tournament MVPs.

Achieving a goal, no matter the size of the prize, is a powerful incentive. It’s a reminder that following through pays off.

2. They discipline and reward themselves

It’s a simple concept, just a matter of application.

Motivation is all about incentive. What’s the payoff? What’s the punishment? Successful athletes make it a point to take themselves seriously, and that means calling themselves out and holding themselves accountable.

Didn’t get out of bed this morning for that run? Skipped breakfast? That’s ok, but yeah, you’re grounded. Ran an extra mile at the end of practice today? Grounding revoked.

 

3. They sleep

An even simpler concept. Successful athletes make sure to clock at least seven hours of sleep every night to aid in rest and recovery. For optimal performance, sleep is crucial in maintaining energy and endurance.

 

4. They feed their competitive nature

Average isn’t okay for elite athletes. The successful ones go out there and compete every time, no matter who they’re with, what they’re doing or where they are. Competition is fuel to athletic fire, and the best in the game are out there burning it up every day.

Successful athletes are constantly pushing to be better than the guy next to them, better than they were yesterday, better than the standard. Pushing forward with intensity and a competitive drive keeps you on your toes and dynamic as an athlete.

Too many people mistake competition for comparison. Successful athletes know the difference. One will make you, one will break you.

 

5. They take instruction and criticism constructively 

Successful athletes can take advice and apply it usefully to their game. Coaching is crucial in sports, but absorbing the information they provide is even more important.

The best athletes are willing to make adjustments and set their pride aside to better themselves and their teammates.

 

 

6. They let things go

They follow the 24-hour rule. 24 hours after a failure, the misstep has long since moved into nonexistence. Bye-bye blunder.

Holding onto negativity can be detrimental to athletes. Mentally, it’s crippling. It gives pitchers the yips, it turns a basketball into a brick, it makes a wide receiver’s fingers all buttery.

The successful ones take 24 hours to reflect on what went wrong and then they let go of that heavy weight and move on without flinching.

7. They aren’t afraid to fail

The most distinctive habit of a successful athlete is their ability to stare a challenge in the eye and attack it without hesitation. The fear of failure builds the walls of that box you’re supposed to be thinking outside of and seals you up inside. When you’re scared of failing, the best option is to avoid trying at all – right?

Chicken.

Fearing failure is a mental state successful athletes don’t acknowledge. Everyone will fail at one point or another – it’s inevitable. The best athletes are fully aware of this, but attach no value to it. They fall and they get up. The ends outweigh the means. Success outweighs failure.

Plus, chicks dig scars.

Source By: Morgan Urtso Seven Habits of Highly Successful Athletes

10 Healthy Tips for Fitness Success

Getting fit is on the minds of most people.  However, many people are not consistent and fail in the first three months of an exercise program.  But if it becomes a habit and they stick to it, something magical happens after four months.  You are finally getting the results you expect and chances are you will continue with the exercise program.


Here a 10 simple tips to help you with your fitness success.

1.   Get Moving.  Resolve to be active in a variety of physical activities on a regular basis that will develop strength, cardiovascular capacity and flexibility.

2.   Prime the Pump.  Resolve to participate in physical activities that involve the large muscle groups of the body.

3.   Let Your Muscles do the Work.  Resolve to lift weight or use resistant exercises to place demands and challenge your muscles.

4.   Loosen Up.  Resolve to stretch regularly – before and after or during exercise.  Remember to move your muscles through their full range of motion on a regular basis.

5.   Win the Losing Game.  Resolve to maintain your weight at an appropriate level.  If you need to lose weight, a general rule to follow is to eat less and exercise more (both in moderation).

6.   Watch What You Eat.  Resolve to eat a healthy diet.  Good nutrition equates to good health.  Good nutrition involves providing your body with the required nutrients in appropriate amounts.

7.   Chill Out.  Resolve to keep matters of your life in proper perspective.  Know what factors you can and cannot control in your life.  Don’t “stress out” over those things beyond your control.  See change as an opportunity, not a threat.

8.   Get Plenty of Rest.  Resolve to get enough sleep.  The basic guideline concerning how much sleep you need is whatever enables you to feel refreshed, alert and in relative good spirits the next day.  Sleep helps to rest and restore your body – both physically and mentally.

9.   Keep Your Focus on the Task at Hand.  Resolve to make time to exercise on a regular basis.  Consistency gets results.  Focus on the muscle you are exercising.  Don’t just go through the motions.

10. Keep in Mind that “There is no Free Lunch.”  Resolve to commit to sound lifestyle choices.  For example, don’t smoke.  Maintain an appropriate level of body fat.  Avoid the latest fitness and diet fads, magic potions and exercise gadgets that seem too good to be true (they always are).

Brigi G | Fitness Inspired Formula

Weight Loss: How to Stay Motivated

Weight Loss and Motivation

Motivation is a factor often overlooked when it comes to weight loss endeavors because you feel strong and determined when first embarking on a weight loss plan. You’re positive you’ll never lose sight of your goals. But, what happens when you lose your focus and motivation takes a serious dive? Can you ever regain your fierce determination and get back on track?
YES YOU CAN!

Do you need weight loss motivation?
ARE YOU READY?
Are you ready to stop fighting against your own success? Are you ready to break free of your limitations? Think for a moment about your desire to lose fat and get it. Know that if you would attempt it, you would without a doubt, achieve your goal. Think carefully about it. Now, reach out and touch that highest vision.
The day you begin your weight loss plan you have just started to make your goal a reality. You’ve set your mind on the best you can imagine for yourself, and you’re on your way. You’ll most certainly get there. There will be effort involved in reaching it. But that’s okay, because you can do it. In fact, you’ll enjoy making that effort because you’ll know where it’s leading.

Have you ever seen someone who seems to be able to attract success easily and naturally? You’ve just become that person. The goal you desire will come to you, easily and naturally, because you’ve focused yourself on achieving it.

The efforts involved may be things you once considered difficult or uncomfortable, yet now they won’t bother you because you’ll know precisely where they’re taking you. You’re on your way. Keep going, and delight in the wonderful rewards you’ve already started to create for yourself, including feeling better and living longer!
For many people, change is more threatening than challenging. They see it as the destroyer of what is familiar and comfortable rather than the creator of what is new and exciting.



Anyone can achieve weight loss. The trick is to LOSE FAT and keep it off!
People who stay slim have usually experienced an attitude shift. It’s as if a switch flips in their head. They come to a point in life, for one reason or another, where it becomes clear that the benefits of keeping the fat off exceed the costs. “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.”

Source 

WHY DO WE FAIL? Will Smith & SUCCESS | MOTIVATION | KEYS TO SUCCESS

Hey Guys,

I found this video and though I share with you, who's checking my blog. Clarity is power!

Why Mindset Matters When Trying to Reach Your Goals

This past weekend I watched the pre-game interview on ESPN with Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, and he was asked, “What happens if your team loses this game?” His response: “I don’t think like that. When you train and practice and prepare, you don’t think about losing.” Wow, I thought, he is spot on. Clearly, this veteran quarterback has practiced and trained his mind as much as he has trained his body. The mind is the body’s most powerful muscle and can be a true game changer, pun intended, when it comes to success.
Over the past 11 years as a personal trainer, health coach and group fitness instructor, I’ve worked with everyone from kids to seniors. From weight loss to speed, changing eating habits, to getting more sleep, the common trait among those who successfully achieve their goals is a positive mindset. It takes work and doesn’t happen overnight, but it can mean the difference between reaching your goals and falling short. When you train your body it gets tired, it needs rest and nourishment. The same is true for our minds—it takes work to train the brain, and if we neglect it, it will become weak.
Life as a Triangle
How do we shape our mindset, especially when we are not in the “right frame of mind”? Whether we are plagued by self-doubt, self-criticism or fear, how do we find a way to reframe these thoughts and feelings to help reach our goals? Recently, I had a great conversation with a member of the behavioral health team at George Washington University. She summed up the perspective of life as a triangle:

• Point 1 is thoughts/beliefs
• Point 2 is feelings/emotions
• Point 3 is actions  

Often we go through life letting points 1 and 2 determine point 3. This can be dangerous, even self-sabotaging. If we think or believe we can’t do something, we can feel hopeless or have negative emotions, and we most likely will not take action. But what if we start leading with point 3 by taking action ahead of our thoughts and feelings. For example, say you want to go for a run. Prior to the run, you may feel anxious or incapable, but if you can take action despite those feelings, you will be successful and, eventually, your thoughts and feelings will transform to more positive, empowering thoughts about your abilities. Whether you’re registering for a marathon or taking a new job, this pattern holds true. Sometimes it is better to lead with action, and let our thoughts and feelings follow. If not, the comfort zone we have created for ourselves in our own thoughts and feelings can prevent us from reaching our potential or goals.
"Be Do Have" Model
Another way to think about mindset is the BE DO HAVE model created by Dr. Jade Teta. It’s human nature to fall into the trap of thinking, “If only I had a lot of money, I would hire a personal trainer, and then I would be fit.” Or, “If only I would work out, then I would be in shape, and could have a lot of money.” The problem is, when we think and live this way, we will never be satisfied, nor will we have any inspiration to take action toward our goals. Instead, our mindset should be “I am fit, I do exercise, and I have a lot of money.” We must embrace what we want or who we want to be now, in this moment. Tell yourself you are who you want to be. Once we do this, everything else will start falling into place.
Once you train your brain, your mindset, to be led by your actions, you will be well on your way to achieving your goals.

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Setting goals – What if you don’t know where to start?

I hate to break it to you, but we really don’t need a new year [or even an “I’ll start again on Monday”] to provide us with an opportunity to make a fresh start. Yes, yes, I know - it’s so much easier to think that way, right?
In fact, I’ve personally being doing this for the last 10 years or so. But the fact of the matter is - it only really serves as a sugarcoating for the B.S we seem to enjoy feeding ourselves on a daily basis. 
Now, I could probably point out the overwhelmingly poor facts and figures of how many people fail their New Year’s Resolutions within the first 2 months of any new year. I could even take that a step further by visually astounding you with fancy colored graphs and pie charts.
Sure, I could do that, but should I – Nah, what’s the point? Who am I to judge [or know how to use that kind of graphical technology?]
I believe it would be far more beneficial to instead offer a little insight into goal setting strategies that I have been using over the past few years with great success. 



I hate to break it to you, but we really don’t need a new year [or even an “I’ll start again on Monday”] to provide us with an opportunity to make a fresh start.

Yes, yes, I know - it’s so much easier to think that way, right?

In fact, I’ve personally being doing this for the last 10 years or so. But the fact of the matter is - it only really serves as a sugarcoating for the B.S we seem to enjoy feeding ourselves on a daily basis. 

Now, I could probably point out the overwhelmingly poor facts and figures of how many people fail their New Year’s Resolutions within the first 2 months of any new year. I could even take that a step further by visually astounding you with fancy colored graphs and pie charts.

Sure, I could do that, but should I – Nah, what’s the point? Who am I to judge [or know how to use that kind of graphical technology?]

I believe it would be far more beneficial to instead offer a little insight into goal setting strategies that I have been using over the past few years with great success. 



The New, New Years Resolution - how to do them right [and not be on the wrong side of the fancy colored pie chart]

 

Step 1: What do you really want?

“Be clear on what you want and then go after it like your life depends on it”

So, with a clear head and an open heart - meaning before the NYE party and certainly well before you hop on the bad foot and do the worst things, take the time to ask yourself “what positive change do I want to bring into my life in 2015?”

The key phrase here is “clear head.”

Because before the hangover hits, it’s imperative that you have first powerfully envisioned an outcome in your mind, one that fills you with positive emotion, a vision that creates a sense of fulfillment, satisfaction and excitement.

Without it – I’m sorry but you ain’t got jack, nada, zip, zilch. 


Step 2: Why do you want it?  


"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get."

Great, you’ve worked out ‘what’ you want.

So now that we’ve got that out of the way, riddle me this – ‘Why’ do you want it?

Tony Robbins talks about all of our actions and behavior in life are taken to fulfill one of 6 basic human needs.

These being:

1.     Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure.

2.     Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change, new stimuli.

3.     Significance: feeling unique, important, special or needed.

4.     Connection/Love: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something.

5.     Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding.

6.     Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others.

So when it comes to setting goals/resolutions for yourself, it’s of paramount importance that you know which of these needs you are trying to fulfill, and why the outcome is so important for you?

From personal experience, the needs that have provided me with the greatest sense of achievement/fulfillment are through the attainment of personal growth, and the feeling of contribution. But let’s be honest, we all want to feel a sense of significance and importance, too!

Best of all, you’ll quickly find that by satisfying just one of these basic human needs, you’ll generally be satisfying many of the others, too. #winning

Finding your why will be the thing that helps you through the tough times as you’ve found your ‘purpose’ for achieving the goal – something bigger than you. 



Step 3: Develop the dream, but don’t forget to be CLEVER about it.

“The devil is in the detail”

For years I had the dream, I even had the why, but where the devil eventually found me was not properly mapping out the details of how I was going to get there.

And if I’m honest, for many “other” years, I had the dream, I had the why, I even had the map, but gee-wizz did I make that map devilishly confusing for myself, focusing on the wrong things, at the worst times.    

It eventually just became all too hard, leaving me suffering from the dreaded ‘paralysis by analysis’ syndrome [the process by which you choose to ‘chuck-it-in-the-f**k-it-bucket-and-move-onto-whatever-is-easier-than-this-s**t’]

That is, until I learned a new technique. 

Now, if you’ve ever tried to set goals before, you’ve probably heard of the basic strategy of setting S.M.A.R.T goals. And, if you want to check out what a SMART goal is, you can find it here on last week’s Xmas post [http://bit.ly/1yzuOL8].

I think S.M.A.R.T goals are a great place to start, but let’s be honest, although being smart is a great a start, being clever is a little better.



The C.L.E.V.E.R Outcome.

Now, I’d love to claim ownership of the C.L.E.V.E.R Outcome strategy but alas it’s not mine, I picked this little gem up from Gordon Young at Beyond NLP during my NLP certification.

Basically, it takes the SMART strategy to the next level.

So let’s get down to getting that C.L.E.V.E.R outcome for you, shall we?

We now know what you want and why you want it, all we need to do now is metaphorically light it on fire by emotionally charging it even further.

The next step is to take your goal/outcome through the following process [thoroughly] to ensure it ticks all the boxes of being as powerful to YOU as possible. 

‘C’ stands for ‘Congruence’ - how does this outcome fit within my values/my overall direction? This is the fulfillment of one of your basic human needs? It needs to fit in with what you actually want from your life?

‘L’ stands for ‘Leveraged’ – when you do this, list the things that this action could cost you, what you could lose ? Or, what could you gain/benefit from in achieving this outcome?

‘E’ stands for ‘Exact’ – you need to ensure your outcome is stated using specifics, especially regarding time.

‘V’ stands for ‘Visionary’ – you need to ensure that you think about your future with imagination. You need to ensure you have a strong and powerful vision of the outcome you want, then you need to stretch it enough that it challenges you to achieve something slightly beyond your grasp.

‘E’ stands for ‘Energized’ – how can you make this outcome more compelling to you personally. How will your life look, feel, smell, taste, sound? How will you know that you have it, and that “having it” was worth achieving?

And last, but not least…

‘R’ stands for ‘’Reviewable’ – a well formed ‘clever outcome’ should be measureable against a specific criteria in order to be achievable. These will be the ‘stepping stones’ that can measure progress along the way.



Step 4: Shine & Polish

Now you’ve put it through the process, it’s time to shine and polish your goal up to make it concise, yet still powerful.

It’s a non-negotiable necessity that you write down your goal and play around with emotive words until you come up with something that really resonates with you.

It’s even more important that you put it up somewhere you can see and read it, every, single, day.

You need to read your goal as many times as possible, because if you’ve written it in the correct way, then you’ll get into the right state of mind each and every time you read it. This is where the power of goal achievement lies.





Step 5:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”

Once you’ve put your goal/outcome through the clever process and then made it shine. The final step is to MAP out how you’re going to achieve the outcome.

Because riding your majestic pink unicorn along the path of pleasure whilst eating all the icecream [and never worrying about putting on weight] is easy when you’re dreaming.

However, I’m sure we can agree that “dreaming the dream” is not really “living the dream”, is it?

The fact of the matter is, all that really needs to happen to make a dream a reality is to FOCUS!

Take the time to focus on everything that needs to be done to achieve the goal.

Don’t stress - the list will most likely be pretty big, but this is where you implement the ‘Pareto Principle’ [also known as the 80/20 rule] to cull down and find the 20% of the list that will return 80% of the results. 

One quick tip however, the ‘flashy’ things that sound like they would be the most fun to do, generally aren’t the things that you should be focusing on! Keep it simple, start from the beginning.

What you should end up with is an action plan with dates and times that you will have achieved each thing by. Then it literally is as simple as ticking off the boxes, because impossible is really nothing but something that requires more steps.

I really hoped this has helped you empower a few outcomes, but please remember, take your time and make it important to you!

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