Cassie Burchett 2012 NPC Gold Coast bikini masters overall champion

I have written many times over the years on this topic and it is something that I am very passionate about. Success and being a champion seem to go hand-in-hand in most peoples minds when they think of any winner of any competition or anyone who is victorious in just about any en-devour. However I challenge you to re-define your notions of what it means to be a champion or what is means to be successful. For me being a champion is all about your attitude toward yourself and others. It is easy to define champions by who is elected into a position or one who wins a title, but does that mean there is only one champion or victor that day? I can not speak for anyone else but myself when I say that I know being a champion means knowing my own sense of self worth, my need to continually strive for excellence in everything that I do, and most importantly my sense of compassion toward others who are on this similar journey.

I have personally competed in bodybuilding since 1989 and I can remember the feelings of dread and failure throughout my career each time I didn’t win a competition. For me everything seemingly was held in the balance on each win or loss. If I won or was victorious, I felt powerful, confident and I felt like I was making my life exactly what I wanted it to be. But the times I lost (which was more than I won), I can remember my feelings of disappointment, despair, and my incredible sense of failure. After some years of this kind of extreme yo-yo emotional roller-coaster ride, I came to a point in my life where I had to re-evaluate and analyze what I was doing to myself. Was there a better way for me to ensure that I could be a success? And was there a way for me to ensure that I was the champion that I knew I was on the inside.

What I came up with was a new definition that fit into my own life and one in which I feel equalizes the playing field of genetics, money and anything else that creates that sense of unfairness when you compete against others who may have advantages over you. There are only two things in life that you can control when it comes to physique competing; your attitude and the work that you do. Almost everything that you will encounter in the competition that will influence your ability to win or lose at a contest will be out of your control. Who you compete against, what the judges think of you, and how your body expresses itself genetically is all out of your hands. The only factors that can sway your own sense of victory is your own attitude and your work ethic.

What’s in the Attitude of a Champion?

The attitude of a champion sees competition as the playground for work that has been done. What I mean by this is that competition isn’t the test of a champion or the way in which champions are revealed, as most see it. The champions have already been created, the forum of competition is just where we, the spectators, get to see a kind of comparative analysis or aggregate of excellence. Winning and losing competitions are the consequences of champions but they aren’t the only consequences nor are all the champions rewarded by a first place trophy. I contend that anyone who applies them selves in earnest, and with conviction, not giving up, dedicating to themselves to being better than they are, and holding others who want this same endeavor with compassion and honor to be a champion.

Champions compete because it is the most natural expression of the competitors need to exhibit all the hard work and effort that has been applied toward the pursuit of excellence. Additionally, competition is the forum where this kind of comparative exhibition exists. Someone is rewarded for rising above but this doesn’t mean that every competitor can’t be seen as a champion or have the sense of value that comes with being excellent at something. What matters most in this case is how you hold your attitude and what effort you have put into your pursuit.

What kind of effort makes a champion?

Everybody who competes tries, but this doesn’t make them a champion necessarily. Aside from the attitude of the competitor, it is the raw effort that makes a champion who he or she is. The kind of effort that I am talking about is the kind that didn’t give up when it got hard. With continual obstacles being thrown in front of them they still persevered. When everyone around them seemed to say they couldn’t do it, they plugged on. When their own self-doubt poked its ugly head up and said you can’t do this, they did it anyway. And when they fell flat on their face after giving everything they thought they had into something, they got up and tried again. This is the effort of a champion.

This kind of effort is special because it assumes that there will be challenges and obstacles that will cross your path. This kind of effort is special because it doesn’t listen to anyone but the voice inside you that tells you that “… this can be done!” Most importantly, it is the kind of effort that simply doesn’t give in or give up in spite of anything that comes its way. It is a wonderfully ignorant kind of effort that only knows what it needs to do.

Cassie Burchett competing at the 2012 NPC Gold Coast Championships

Champions are people who understand that being a champion might result in holding the 1st place trophy but not necessarily. Champions define themselves by their own meter and know that the value in being a champion comes from your own unique perspective. Only you know where you came from, what emotional obstacles you have overcome, what things you had to conquer and how hard it was to do it.  Only you have been present every moment of every day that you have been on this journey. And only you know how hard it has been, how much you had to learn, overcome, and ignore just to step on stage. This is a champion, and it is possible every time YOU step on stage, go to the gym or do anything everyday, you simply have to know it and feel it.

Every year many people go through the ritual of re-defining what it is that they want from their bodies and setting goals for this is a common place. Here are my suggestions to making this more than a just a ritual but apart of your year’s success process.

BE SPECIFIC

First, make sure you are very specific about what you want. What this means is define exactly what you want in concrete terms. You should know what you want so that you not only know when you get there but also so that you can more easily design a path to accomplish it. If you want to gain muscle this year then you should know exactly how many pounds and what you are going to do each day and week and month in order to acquire this goal.

KNOW YOUR DESTINATION

You should also have a planned date in the year when you expect to accomplish each goal and you should be specific about this date also. If you don’t know how long you have to get there then you really have few ways to know what kind of pace you need to set for yourself. This also increases your focus when you know exactly what you want and when you want to achieve it.

MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS

Make sure that you have some way of measuring your success throughout the year. If you don’t have a clear way to understand how well you are doing then it is likely that you will give up sooner. If you can measure your success or failure each day, week and month then you will more likely to fix any problems and address any challenges along the way. Also, knowing where you are in your process can be an incredible way to get a sense of accomplishment as you plug along the path to your end goals. It is always important to recognize what you are doing right, and not just beat yourself up when you feel you are doing poorly. You will thrive more off recognizing your successes, which can create momentum in your year’s journey, than focusing on just where your challenges are.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

The people who accomplish more goals consistently than others share one big thing in common…positive attitude. When I say positive attitude it means more than just thinking warm fuzzy thoughts or saying only things that seem to highlight where you want to be. For me positive attitude can mean some of this, but more importantly it is a way in which you approach your day. It encompasses your overall world outlook and often controls your responses to challenges and helps guide your intentions. Attitude is the sugar in your Cool aid! Without it victories can seem disappointing and short lived.

Pointing your attitude toward the positive also means focusing your attention, thoughts and actions on what produces the good feelings that we all want more of each day. Your attitude will be the single most important attribute and will influence your success more than anything else in your life. Your attitude will define your life, open or close opportunities to you, and give you a sense of fulfillment in your life of fill you with a sense of despair about your existence. Ask any great diplomat, negotiator, CEO, world leader, or athlete and they will all tell you that you must have the right attitude to achieve success in anything.

DON’T GIVE UP OR GIVE IN

I really see this as a point of a positive attitude but being able to not give up and stick through the challenges and hardships as  you travel the path of your goals is also a requirement. As a matter of fact, if you can’t look disappointment and failure in the face and keep on going then you might as well not try to accomplish anything great in the first place. Challenges and obstacles are inevitable in everyone’s year goal procurement. If our goals and desires weren’t significantly challenging then everyone would have the body they want and the success in their lives they want but the fact is that most don’t. So recognizing that there will be challenges along the way and possibly more failure than you expected should be on the table from the start. It is O.K. to acknowledge that you won’t always reach your goals when and how you expected to. This is a part of the goal achievement  process. The point is that you don’t give up or give in when you are knocked down.

I see so many people every year who try to achieve their body goals and falter so quickly and the second they are knocked down they seem to refuse to get up and continue to try. It is as if they have hit a wall and somehow know that it is un-scalable. Don’t see these intermittent challenges as obstacles, instead see them as opportunities to learn how to be better at whatever you are after. Remember, you are in control of your actions and you will be the one who decides to give in, give up or keep on going. I don’t know how many times I have talked to successful people about how they have accomplished the things that I wanted to emulate and the first and most important part of each of their stories are what they learned through the obstacles they had to over come. And it is often these challenges and failures along their path of success that defines their journey and gives them a heightened sense of elation and fulfillment when they finally reach their goals.

What an incredible honor we all get to be able to choose our life’s paths. We don’t often get to choose how victory comes to us, nor do we often get to set the timelines but we decide everyday to be on the path. As long as you are on the path and have the right attitude that points you forward you will get there eventually. And I know that a life focused on these kinds of principles will be one that is filled with tremendous value and lessons.