How To Be Your Own Toughest Rival – Part 2

A central concept for being a champion is to battle against your best or gold self. Do not accept a silver or bronze attitude and effort level. Let’s take a look at how we can achieve this.

Shine While You Can

The principle is all about competing with yourself, to be your own toughest rival. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before. In other words, always trying to win against your own standard of excellence and keep raising the bar on your own level of play.

Additionally, use great performances with others as extra inspiration for your own improvement. Challenge your club mates or competitors in order to push yourself to higher and higher levels. Compete against your club mates in practice but support them in tournament games, giving them encouragement and moral backing. It’s always better to create productive rivalries with all your club mates and competitors rather than to harbour negative jealousies.

Our opportunity to shine in the game of life and in tennis is fleeting – the clock is ticking! So always push yourself that extra mile in determination with a fresh sense of purpose and passion. being a champion means fully expressing yourself and doing all the things you value in your life. Leave your comfort zone behind and deliberately and fiercely chase your dream goals. Rally hard and find that winning passing shot against your opponent.

Success Is Peace Of Mind

Strive to always bring a winning attitude and steady effort to practice and to competitions.

Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming, – Legendary Basketball Coach John Wooden.

You’ll find that you can have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep and rest when you know that it was a 100% effort that you gave – win or lose!

Stay Strong In Self-Belief

Performance success depends upon three types of core beliefs:

• Your view of the activity
• Your view of yourself
• Your view of the future

Our entrenched self-limiting beliefs are often the biggest barrier to overcome. Champions are always willing to learn from constructive criticism and also believe in themselves regardless of others’ negative opinions. Never let negative comments from others or self-defeating beliefs about your performance go unchallenged. Besides, feeling that you are unworthy or incapable does not mean it is a fact. What we learned in the past can be transformed by what we learn in the present. Shatter your self-limiting beliefs and also have fun trying to accomplish things that no one else thinks you can. Be your own toughest rival!

What Helps You To Be The Gold Version Of Yourself?

Please share with us how you challenge the critics or the non-believers. What steps do you take every day to help you become a better version of yourself? Remember, you control what goes into your head, what you accept as your truth and what you can do to prove the critics wrong. So be strong, be the best and above all be the toughest rival of yourself!

Excerpts taken from “The Champion’s Mind – How Great Athletes Think Train and Thrive” by Jim Afremow PhD. ISBN 978-1-62336-562-2 – An excellent read from a leading sports psychology consultant and licensed counsellor.