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4 Ways to Reach Your Personal
Best
John C. Maxwell
Look in the mirror — that’s your competition.
Thinking
about that adage the other day, I remembered a talk by swimmer Diana Nyad.
Turning 60, Nyad was driving and saw her eyes during a glance in the rearview
mirror.
The moment prompted introspection on what she calls “the one
that got away.”
Her
most coveted goal was swimming nonstop from Florida to Cuba.
In her
20s, she had attempted it after conquering several other long-distance
challenges, but the 111-mile stretch through shark- and jellyfish-infested
water defeated her.
While
many of us would be enjoying our newly acquired senior discounts, Nyad was
returning to the water.
She
hadn’t swum in 31 years, not a stroke, she told her audience. But that face in
the mirror was determined.
She
spent hours at a time in the water training — eight, 10, 12 — to regain her
strength, stamina and technique.
She
finally thought she had reached 15 hours, but her trainer clocked her at 14
hours, 58 minutes and told her not to worry about the two-minute shortfall.
Nyad
would have none of it. She jumped back in and swam until the stopwatch hit
15:00:00. That’s commitment!
To
reach your personal best, you need to learn how to challenge the person the
mirror. He or she is your toughest adversary.
Discovering
how to overcome your limitations, fears, self-doubts — and the tendency to write off those last
two minutes in the pool — will do more for your development than defeating a
dozen competitors.
Here’s
what to do.
1.
Be growth-minded, not goal-minded.
I
love to win, and you probably do, too. It’s natural to make winning your
ultimate goal, like a sports team hungering for a championship ring or a
swimmer wanting to set a record.
But you
have to be careful about directing too much energy into one goal, like Nyad’s
late-in-life swim.
If
you obsess over a singular event, what happens if you lose? Or for that matter,
what happens after you win? Ever heard of a Super Bowl hangover? A lot of
times, the champs flounder the next season.
That’s
why I like to concentrate on growth rather than goals: That game is never over.
We’re not distraught if we’ve lost, and we haven’t peaked if we’ve won. There’s always room to improve.
Nyad’s
career was actually a succession of accomplishments: She had broken the women’s
world record for a 22-mile swim from Capri to Naples, Italy; shattered the top
time for swimming around Manhattan by an hour; and trounced the open-ocean
world record for men and women in a 102.5-mile swim from the Bahamas to
Florida.
She
grew, setting new marks time and again.
Would
anybody have thought less of her if she never again put on a swimsuit? Of
course not.
But she
saw an opportunity to grow further and set a new standard — for swimmers and
for all of us worried about the limits of aging bodies.
She met that goal and set another: Nyad and her Cuba
swim expedition leader Bonnie Stoll have founded EverWalk, a campaign to
improve health by walking.
Nyad
and Stoll call it the “biggest walking initiative in American history.”
2.
Emphasize gradual progress.
Anyone
who has tried to lose weight knows fixating on the big number is a sure way to
fail. Twenty pounds is intimidating — and discouraging when the scale seems to
barely budge; 2 pounds is manageable.
Achieve
a 2-pound goal 10 times, and you drop two sizes and earn a shopping trip.
Yes,
emphasizing growth over goals is critical, but goals do have their place in
competition. I think of them as milestones on the journey of growth.
Set
incremental ones — as with the weight-loss example — and celebrate each time
you achieve one before moving to the next.
Developing small disciplines helps. As part of my
daily work routine, for example, I read or listen to someone else’s teaching
with a goal of capturing at least one quote to use in future speaking
opportunities.
Salespeople
make phone calls daily, touching base with past clients and reaching out to
prospects; the most successful ones have the discipline to make a set number of
calls daily, with an occasional challenge day in which they push themselves to
dial a few more.
Big
success tomorrow depends on the little things you do today.
3. Develop your strengths.
When
I was growing up, my parents encouraged me to find the one thing I did best and channel my
energy toward it. This was incredibly liberating.
I
didn’t have to worry about being all things to all people. I could simply grow
my given talents, pushing myself to be better and better.
Countless
athletes play multiple sports as kids. But the ones who go on to play in
college or professionally almost always give up a sport they play well to focus
on one in which they can become great.
The
same applies to you: Identify your natural strengths and pursue them with passion.
Research
bears this out. For years, Gallup has studied the advantages of developing
strengths instead of trying to fix weaknesses.
One
finding: People who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to
be engaged on the job. You won’t push yourself to new heights if your heart
isn’t in your work.
4.
Partner with other winners.
Learning to push yourself is critical. But it’s
easy to lose sight of how well you’re doing or pinpoint your weaknesses if you
depend only on your own perspective.
The
solution? Get a mentor. I’ve had the privilege of being coached
by some of the brightest people in their fields. It is amazing how much
difference their insight and advice make.
Years
ago while working on my first book, I was lucky enough to partner with
publishing professional Les Stobbe.
I sent
him samples of my work and asked for his opinion because I was worried about
the quality. I appreciated his writing tips (and I’m sure my readers did,
too!), but what I really valued was his encouragement.
Largely
because of him, I pushed myself to write and write and write. I can reach
a far greater audience in print than I ever could as a speaker.
***
Back
to Nyad: Her quest initially failed. Jellyfish attacked. Their stings felt like
fire, and their poison started to shut down her respiratory system. At the
time, she said her dream was crushed.
Only
it wasn’t. Those slimy critters didn’t extinguish her competitive flame.
In
another attempt in 2013, at age 64, she swam from Key West to Havana — the
first person to do so without a protective cage.
Nyad
had vowed to find a way, and for her triumphant effort, she wore a suit and
mask that protected her from stings.
“Never, ever give up,” she
said in interviews following her feat.
We
can all live by those words.
This article originally appeared in the September 2016 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
John C. Maxwell, an
internationally respected leadership expert, speaker, and author who has sold
more than 18 million books, has been named an inaugural SUCCESS Ambassador. Dr.
Maxwell is the founder of EQUIP, a non-profit organization that has trained more
than 5 million leaders in 126 countries worldwide. A New York Times, Wall
Street Journal and BusinessWeek; best-selling author, Maxwell has
written three books that have sold more than a million copies.
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