Being a sports fan, I do keep a track of the various sporting actions and events related to sporting personalities. Happened to read a few days back how India’s earlier ace long jumper was awarded a prestigious award. Was also watching the series called match point in Zee5 which covers about 2 of India’s greatest tennis players Leader Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi ..they also combined together to form one of the world’s most successful doubles pairs winning every Grand Slam title. Here were two sets of players who had defied normal sporting logic and grown to achieve more success than was expected of them when they started off..
So the idea about this article came to mind trying to identify the various factors which go about in making some people get better and better based on the sporting field and see if we could take those practices and routines to other fields also..
1. Ability to handle and use the pressure
We have seen many sporting greats reserve their best performances for the most crucial of matches, or of some people who raise their performance several folds when they are representing their country in crucial matches. The best example that again comes to mind is the singles performances of Leander Paes when playing singles representing India in the Davis Cup. We have seen on so many occasions how Leander would raise his game several levels in those crucial encounters and beat players ranked much higher than him in rankings.
We also very often see how Virat Kohli and the Australian team members building pressure on the cricket field because somehow they thrive under those pressure situations.
2. Masters in compartmentalization
We keep hearing of several players who have personal tragedies mid-way through some of the important sporting events but they stay back and compete and continue to perform at their best without getting distracted by their personal tragedies ..They are able to do this because they are able to compartmentalize their focus as per their requirement..
The same has also been widely written about Steve Jobs and how we would be able to compartmentalize and create a vision for product by compartmentalizing not only himself but his team also.
3.. Major sports personalities do not get distracted by success or failures of their competitors. While they may keep watching they play to understand their game they focus their energies on what they can control and forget about the rest..
4.. Ability to switch on and off as per will
In addition to key sports persons being able to switch off the moment they finish a routine or a sprint we have also heard about business leaders like Steve Jobs who could totally remove themselves from what they were working on whenever they wanted and hence refuel themselves
5.. Put the day behind as soon as its over
Have read in Andrea Agassi autobiography about how once a match was over the entire focus would shift into recouping the body and thinking about the next match or tournament ..There is also this widely talked about note where Indra Nooyi talks about how she would only be a mother and a wife the moment she stepped into the house .
6.. Focus on long term goals and aspirations and breaking them down into achievable short-term goals
The process adopted by most key athletes are breaking down their long-term goals into very small achievable short-term goals which allow them to peak in time for the big event or the competitions like the Olympics or the grand slams which they are aspiring to win. I remember reading about athletes going to specific places for training or participating in specific competitions to compete against a particular group of people to achieve the same.
7.. Use the competition
Its very common in sports where we find some of the best world class athletes or sportsmen training along with competitors of other countries.
The first example that comes to mind is that of India’s first ace shuttler Prakash Padukone who used to train along with Denmark shuttler Morten frost. I remember at one point in time these two were the No 1 and No2 ranked players in the world. When this was happening in the early 80s, I was a young kid and would very often wonder why are they doing such a think but realize today the plan was to improve each other’s skills to take on the Chinese and the Indonesians.
There are several more such well documented cases
8.. Keep reinventing yourself
In sports as new competition comes up the leaders need to find newer and better ways at reinventing themselves and stretching themselves ..I remember the achievements of Carl Lewis the American Sprinter and long Jumper ..After having won 4 gold medals in the 1984 Los angles Olympics and he had to reinvent himself to counter the challenges which came from Ben Johnson in the sprints but still managed to get 2 more golds and one silver in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He then had to face a great resistance from Mike Powell in the long jump in the 91 world championship where despite jumping a world record 8.91 meters he had to settle for silver with Powell jumping 8. 95metres.The reinvention is what helped him get the long jump gold medal again in the 92 and the 96 Olympics..
9.. Insatiable appetite for Feedback
This is something I keep seeing on the cricket field where even if they are very successful players go our of the way to seek feedback and improve by getting thoughts from any great player that they come across. It does not stop them even if the other person is from a different country or the player is well past his prime.
Do we do this in our working lives..
10.. Celebrating and breaking down the victories
Celebrating each victory is what we all like to do. But very often we forget to enjoy those small victories and also understand the reasons for the success to replicate them and achieve more success using the same methods..
All of the factors that I quoted above which are practiced by great sports people are also very much relevant in our day-to-day life’s whether its at work or at home…For ways on How to incorporate each these success mantras into our daily lives keeping watching this space for more…
