Where to start?
Often times the hardest part of trying to change or adjust something in your life is admitting that something needs to change. This semester I took a class called “Learning and Motivation Strategies for Success in College” and it was my wakeup call for needing to alter something in my life. For me, it was my ATTITUDE and lack of MENTAL STRENGTH.
I am in my first year of being a varsity swimmer at a division one college so that naturally is going to come with different types of challenges than high school swimming presented. However, this blog post does not only apply to athletes, life presents numerous challenges that require a strong mindset and positive attitude. Every day presents new tests and trials that may be difficult and even overwhelming, so it is important that we learn how to pause in a situation and reflect on the outcome we want and how we need to think/react, demanding some type of tough mentality.
Choosing GOALS and a BOOK
For this semester I thought it would benefit me the most if I focused on one main, specific goal:
Having a more positive attitude.
This was a goal that I have been thinking about for a while, as I sometimes find myself struggling to keep a positive attitude through all of the events that happen throughout my days, especially during swim practice.
When I saw the list of books that we were presented with choosing from, the word champion automatically caught my eye. Upon reading a couple of reviews and a brief introduction to what it was about, I was sold on reading the book The Champion’s Mind, by Jim Afremow. Since my goal involved staying positive during practice, I thought it would be a good idea to choose a book that would help me reach the full potential that I can during swimming.
I found that this book and the lessons that it has taught me will stay with me for the rest of my life. I cannot stress enough how much this book has impacted how I view not only athletics now, but life in general. A few of the lessons I learned from the book that I found to be the most impactful:
Be your own champion
Whether it’s for a race, a job promotion, studying for a test, etc., you should always see yourself as a contender for being the champion, and by that, I mean truly believing in yourself. Know your potential! You should never rule yourself out as a possible winner, no matter what level you are at. You have to be YOUR best, not someone else’s, because as your own person you can only control what you do, not what others do.
With that in mind, you have to remember why you are doing this task in the first place, do you truly love what you are doing? In order to reach your full potential in any area in life, you have to enjoy what you are doing because if you don’t, then you really aren’t at your best.
Play to win, not to not lose
The essence of this point is to always give your best and to not put yourself in a situation where you are just going through the motions. When you play to win, you cannot lose even if you do not get the result you wanted because then you get a learning experience.
The book quotes soccer star Abby Wambach as she says, “You cannot win at everything you attempt in life. You have to be willing to fail and fall flat on your face in order to get glory”. It is okay to fail, that’s how you learn, but doing something out of fear of failure is when you truly lose.
Positivity is key
At the end of the day, attitude is a decision, not something that just happens to you without any of your control. There are many days that I face where I use the excuse, “I just woke up in a bad mood, I can’t do anything about it”, then I proceed to carry this bad attitude around with me the rest of the day, through classes and practice. This mindset is detrimental to your personal growth and your mental health in general.
Now what I’m not doing is telling you to just force yourself to be in a good mood, because if we were able to do that easily then the world would be a much different place. Start with small things every day, for example just pause and take a second to appreciate little parts of your day that make you happy. Finding small things to be grateful for will go a long way, have the gratitude attitude.
How to get there!
Now I’ve been talking a lot of talk, I think it is time I tell you how to get to that positive mindset with a champion attitude. Jim Afremow discusses many mental strategies that are useful when getting your mind right for anything you may be facing. One of the most important ones is remembering to set goals. An example of how I used this throughout the semester was that I set a goal to tell myself one good thing that happened that day whenever I was in practice and felt like focusing on how much I was hurting or tired, rather than giving in to the bad attitude. I actually kept track of this in order to further enforce how serious I was about this goal. To do this I used the app imoodjournal.
This app allows you to keep track of your moods during the day and make notes, so what I would do is after practice I would submit my mood at what time and then I would make a note of the positive things I told myself. Looking back on this now at the end of the semester, the feeling of seeing all of the positive comments throughout my days was really beneficial to me and made me more motivated to keep a positive attitude.
Another strategy that I found to be very important was to monitor your self-talk. The way we talk to ourselves (yes, we can admit we all do it) is very important and has a large impact on our lives and attitude. It is a behavior that many people unfortunately do not think about enough. It goes hand in hand with attitude, if other people talked to you the way you talk to yourself, would you be okay with that?
How I have managed my self-talk is by setting reminders on my phone to repeat daily. Every day I force myself to see two things, a note that says, “be your best self” and my goal of making it to the NCAA division 1 championship this year. These reminders keep that voice inside my head tamed and positive as I am reminded of what it is I want out of my current stage in life.
A brief reflection
I first started reading this book way back in the very first week of September and I can truly say that I have grown from it. I believe that it has shaped my mindset permanently as I now feel like I have a sense of reasoning and truly feel that I have embraced having a positive attitude.
While this is not what is important, it is a perk- I have been rewarded for my positive attitude and hard work in the pool. I would show a picture of the results as proof but the app meetmobile did not cooperate with my coaches so you will have to take my word for it but I went a best time at a meet we hosted last weekend against Kenyon college. This is huge for me as I never go best times in season so I wholeheartedly believe that this result is due to my positive attitude fueling my hard work these last couple of months.
Whether it is in school, athletics, a job, or any other aspect of your life, never forget the power of a strong mind and a positive attitude. Be that mental champion.