Hi all
I am not a sports psychologist, but I do know a thing or two of success and more importantly, failure.
Firstly let me tell you of my chess story. I was always pretty good, but I never did well at the national championships. One year, I was the favourite to win. It was going well, but then I lost with three matches to go which meant I couldn't win anymore. I really really wanted to win that year and couldn't bear losing. I cried in the car on the way home. I was 12.
But instead of losing hope, I returned the next year, even more determined to win. And I promise you, I wasn't the best. I remember talking about chess strategies and ideas with friends and they knew way way more than me. But I wanted to win. I wanted to win more than anyone. That need for success drove me to give my everything I had and more. It is not easy for a 13 yaer old to concentrate for 4 hours, but that need to win made me focus so clearly I managed. And I won.
The need for success, that desperate want to be the best is what creates champions. If you watched the French Open recently, you would have seen that need in Nadal. I knew Nadal was going to win from the start. You could see he wanted to win more than anything. He was just more focused than everyone else.
Another example from my life is my studies, which is still actually ongoing. In my second year, I became really ill. I couldn't walk for 100m without becoming light-headed and I had chronic diarrhoea. It is impossible to study actuarial science if you are not at your best health. And therefore I failed a subject and came close to stopping studying altogether. I was not used to failing academically and I'm the first of my family not to have a perfect record. The problem was, not only was I ill, I was studying to keep my parents happy, not myself. But I realised that life won't grant me freebies. I'll have to work. I'll have to work hard to get what I want. And what I want is to have a good life, job security, never to fear not having enough money, be able to care for my family (which I don't have yet), basically to be successful. This is also what my parents wanted, but I had to realise that I'm studying for me and not for them. And so I pulled up my socks (became healthy again), and worked harder and I am back on track to become an actuary. Giving up won't bring you success.
The other day I read an extremely good quote right here on Steemit: "Don't stop until you're proud."
So to sum up, success won't come easily, you gotta want it and then most importantly you'll have to work for it!
