You Have To Think Like Champions DO!

You have to think like champions do. Dont think you know what's realistic for you. Go out there and create
your own reality. Being what most people think is realistic is only a way of justifying negative thinking. Being
realistic is too often an excuse for not working hard enough to improve. It also happens to be a significant
source of unhappiness.
It's almost as if exceptional people belong to a secret club. In this club the members know that the average
person limits himself. They know that the exceptional person is exceptional in large part be cause he doesn't
limit himself. They operate from the place of delusion. They create a persona for themselves and they make that
persona reality. Confidence precedes success. You have to be a legend in your own mind before you can be a
legend in your own time.
The thing that often separates the best from the rest is a capacity to believe things that are not true but which
are incredibly effective. The true professional in every field performs from a base of solid faith in his potential to
act successfully. He is not interested in basing his beliefs on statistical truth; he is interested in cultivating beliefs
that create success (which is a different kind of truth). He doesnt listen to self -doubt. Doubt is the fundamental
cause of error under pressure.
Progress is made by ignoring the evidence; it is about creating a mind-set that is immune to doubt and
uncertainty. Because, to win, one must proportion ones belief, not to the evidence, but to whatever the mind
can usefully get away with. To win, one must surgically remove doubtrational and irrationalfrom the mind.
That is how the placebo effect operates.
To perform to your maximum you have to teach yourself to believe with an intensity that goes way beyond
logical justification. No top performer has lacked this capacity for irrational optimism; no sportsman has played
to his potential without the ability to remove doubt from his mind. What they say is not directed at truth but at
sustaining a particular mind-set. Beliefs are aimed not solely at truth, but at what works.
Top athletes have learned to filter out unwanted evidence in order to sustain an exaggerated belief in their own
abilities. They trained their minds to ignore the evidence, to focus on tiny specks of optimism, to take the
positives to protect self-belief so that doubt is eliminated at the point of performance. Self-belief sets up a
powerful communication between mind and body.
I am going to take the positives out of the defeat and focus on the ways my game has improved, - it is about
ignoring aspects of a performance that contradict ones prior optimism while focusing on the good tactics, the
winning shots, etc., that support it. I have interviewed dozens of top athletes and been astounded at how
effortlessly and seamlessly they manipulate the evidence to conform to their beliefs rather than the other way
around; at how they filter out experiences that might hamper their quest for top performance. Once you have
committed to your decision, you have to flick the mental switch and execute the shot as if there was never any
doubt that you would nail it.
Many tour pros set goals of trying to win a certain number of events per year. Tiger sets a goal of trying to win
every event he enters. He truly believes he has a chance to win each time he ste ps out to play.
The biggest thing is to have a mind-set and a belief you can win every tournament going in. There's no sense in
going to a tournament if you don't believe that you can win it. And that is the belief I have always had. And that
is not going to change. - Tiger Woods.
You have to see yourself winning before you win. And you have to be hungry. You have to want to conquer. The
mind is the limit. I never went to a competition to compete. I went to win. Even though I didn't win every time,
that was my mind-set. I became a total animal. If you tuned into my thoughts before a competition, you'd hear
something like: I deserve that pedestal, I own it, and the sea ought to part for me. Just get out of the fucking

way, I'm on a mission. So just step aside and gimme the trophy. And, actually, I was not especially exhilarated
when I won, because to me, winning was a given. It was a part of a job. I had an obligation to win. - Arnold
Schwarzenegger
"My mind was so good, my attitude was so good! When I got to the starting line it was like a laser beam from
the middle of my forehead to the finish line. And all I cared about was getting to that finish line first. I never got
off that beam, that single-minded purpose of getting there before anyone else. Most of the drivers wanted to
win. Or I should say they would have like to win. But they also didn't wanna finish last, didn't wanna blow a tire
and wreck a car, didn't wanna look really bad. I didn't care about any of that stuff. I just wanted to get to the
finish line first. And I dominated. - Richard Petty
Exceptional thinkers only want to attend to the perceptual cues that work in their favor and process those one
or two simple, narrow targets so intently that their brain is busy with only a small piece o f information creating
their own sensory deprivation chamber. They allow their concentration to affect reality, not the other way
around. Nothing derails efforts to find The Zone more than the natural tendency to be too pragmatic or
evaluative when trying to improve performance. If you start being rational and logical about your vision you
don't have a chance. At some point your perception of your talent is way more important than your talent, and
it has everything to do with what's going on inside of you.
Confident golfers think about what they want to happen on the course. Golfers who lack confidence think about
the things they don't want to happen. That's all confidence is. It's simply thinking about the things you want to
happen on the golf course. Play a shot confidently, and the body performs at its graceful best. Play a shot while
doubting your ability to pull it off and the body more often than not loses its rhythm, grace and timing.
Tiger never allowed himself to be satisfied, because in his mi nd satisfaction is the enemy of success. His whole
approach was to delay gratification and somehow stay hungry. Its the way of the Super Achiever: the more
celebrations, the less therell be to celebrate. E, thats not what we do. Were supposed to win. Any
accomplishment was important only as a reference point for future improvement, not as a pleasurable memory
to dwell on.
One of Tigers gifts was the ability, when he needed to, to turn off emotion. No doubt hed learned early on that
strong emotions unchecked adversely affect coordination and focus and generally impede winning. His knack for
shutting down emotion was a big reason he closed out victories better than anyone else in history, and why he
was so incredibly good at making the last putt. He told me that he often got angry on purpose because it
allowed him to get rid of frustration, and also served to motivate him and improve his focus. Tiger was like a yogi
who could level his emotions seemingly at will. Tigers ideal attitude: quiet aggravation and a goal.
I dont think he doubts anything he does. Woods is the most remarkable sportsman I have seen in terms of selfbelief. He is able to fully commit to the shot. On ten-foot putts he believes he will nail them. On forty-foot putts,
he knows, deep down, he is unlikely to hole them, but he is able to focus his entire mind on the possibility of
success rather than the probability of failure. And at the moment he hits the putt, his conviction is total. It is a
remarkable skill.
A tour pro not telling the truth in such circumstances isnt really lying. Rather, hes being pragmatic. The goal is
to protect the ego and scrub the memory of any negativity as quickly as possible. Every famous player has made
sketchy excuses that dont acknowledge the possibility of nerves or bad thinking.