What are the mental qualities that you need to be successful?
Just recently, I was interviewed on Business Day TV about the psyche of success. From my work with champions in all walks of life, I was asked on the spot to distil their psyche into QUALITIES OF SUCCESS. When I watched the show, I realized that each one of these mental qualities every one of us has, has had, or can have, activated in our psyche. The magic of activating these qualities lies within the workings of another three processes that occurs in many WHOLE CHAMPIONS and great leaders. These processes are self-awareness, empathy, and positive focus.
- Self-awareness demonstrates that which you are thinking, feeling, and doing that serves, as well as, does not serve your success.
- Empathy gives you the capacity to tune in to your desires and needs, as well as those of others. It gives you, as well as those you have empathy for, the energy to take action. It works similar to imagination, but with plenty emotion.
- Positive Focus is the key to mobilise momentum on any successful path you embark on. How much do you focus on reframing your attention on the positive of every situation, every step of the way on your path to attainment?
Work on your self-awareness(seeing yourself “objectively”), empathy (putting yourself in the shoes of another), and positive focus(the cup is half-full mentality) while you cultivate the eight seeds for a psyche of success.
The Eight Seeds For Cultivating A Psyche of Success:
- DESIRE: a feeling of excitement about something you would love to accomplish. Give yourself permission to want to achieve, accomplish, or have whatever is important for you. Find ways to keep that desire alive in your mind as often as possible.
- WORTHINESS: a feeling of knowing that you have strengths and value, and that you can express these to get what you want. Consciously pat yourself on the back for what you do well or even when you feel great. Dig deep, and acknowledge your strengths, value, and purpose
- APPRECIATION: a feeling of gratefulness of all the resources, conditions, and support that surrounds you to move you forward in the direction of fulfilling your desires. Make daily time to think and feel grateful about whatever makes you feel lucky from the simplest things to the most profound.
- FAITH: a feeling that everything will work out for you in the end. The universe is on your side. Practice reframing negatives into positives. In addition train yourself to trust your gut-feel responses and follow through on them.
- NORMALISING DOUBT: a feeling of understanding the normality of the doubt, anxiety, stress, fear, tension and all the negative feelings that emerge as you push yourself out of your comfort zone. All whole champions have these feelings – affirm the normality and even the usefulness of these feelings. Keep an 80:20 ratio of 80% positive thinking and 20% negative thinking at the back of your mind. Remember this is the ideal! Negative feelings can evoke healthy pressure, and adrenaline that mobilise action and change.
- COURAGE TO ACT: a feeling of boldness that you want to stretch yourself and put yourself in to unknown territory for the fun of it, for excitement, growth, discovery and purpose. When your courage is being tested, just do then think!
- ENJOYING THE JOURNEY: a feeling of enjoyment and playfulness on the unpredictable twists and turns as your journeyunfolds. The contrast of obstacles and solutions, dips and highs, is what makes every journey exciting. The joy of the journey all depends on how you handle difficult times. Be conscious of handling them in a way that serves your worthiness, fulfilment and positive growth.
- ALWAYS LEARNING: this is the feeling of humility – owning when you have made a mistake, or straying from your path of being your best self. Be mindful of seeing each moment as an opportunity for embracing difference, being flexible, and opening your mind to the greatness in yourself as well as, the greatness of the other. As every whole champion understands, real success is much greater than just the achieving of success; it is really about the fulfilment of the learning, the giving, the sharing, the contributions that are made along the road to success. This is how a successful psyche defines success!
Regardless of whatever area of life you would like to feel successful, plant the above eight seeds of success into your psyche. Water and nurture them with SELF-AWARENESS, EMPATHY, and POSTIVE FOCUS, and you will enjoy reaping what you have sown and continue to sow.
By Toni Gaddie
Clinical &Sports Psychologist
Leadership Coach, Director Champion Academy