WIN YOUR R.A.C.E.
We all want to be champions, because champions win. That’s easy to see. But if you’re willing to dig deeper, you’ll find that champions aren’t who they are because they win. In fact, actually, just the opposite is true. Champions win because of who they are. And the same is true for you. You aren’t a champion because you win; you win because you’ve done the hard work it takes to become a champion – to become someone worthy of winning.
That pursuit – becoming someone worthy of winning – it isn’t a quick or easy sprint to completion. It’s more like a marathon. In any race, we often celebrate those who cross the finish line first without always recognizing or appreciating the long, hard road it took for them to get there. Becoming a champion works the same way. It’s a journey filled with struggling, failing, learning, and eventually improving and succeeding in the areas that are most critical to becoming our best and most essential to achieving our goals. It’s the R.A.C.E. any of us who want to be champions have been called to run.
So what are those areas that are critical to becoming your best and most essential to achieving your goals? If you’re serious about becoming a champion, what is the R.A.C.E. you’ve been called to run? How can you separate yourself from your competitors and become someone worthy of winning? Here are four great places to focus on winning each day…
R for your Response…Specifically, I’m talking about your response to the adversity you’ll encounter as part of this pursuit. The truth is, anything that’s really worth doing will have to be done despite some setbacks and sufferings. If becoming a champion was easy, then everybody’d do it. But this journey isn’t easy. There will be plenty of unexpected roadblocks and detours to navigate along the way.
Champions have accepted that becoming their best requires a significant price to pay, and that overcoming adversity is built into that price. It’s part of the deal. They also recognize that what happens to them is actually a lot less important than how they choose to respond to what happens. So stop creating for yourself some naïve picture of effortless success, or hoping adversity will magically and mercifully impose itself elsewhere. Instead, keep building the toughness it takes to rise up and meet it when it comes.
A for your Attitude…Charles Swindoll perfectly captured the impact and importance of our attitude. “Attitude, to me, is more important that facts,” he said. “It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say, or do…The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play the one string we have, and that is our attitude.”
In short, the attitude you choose each day determines not only what you do, but the manner in which you do it. And when you choose to be positive, to be encouraging, and to be grateful – even and maybe especially when things are tough – you find opportunities to learn and improve you never would have otherwise. Swindoll was right. Our attitude is everything.
C for your Commitment…This is one of the most obvious and most important ways champions set themselves apart. It’s one of the most obvious and important ways you can set yourself apart – by the level of commitment to you choose to make. It’s the pledge you make each day to the process of becoming your best. It’s the proof that you love the pursuit.
When most people think of love, it’s a feeling that comes to mind. But champions understand that while feelings come and go, an authentic commitment never does. Real love isn’t just about how you feel; it’s about the choices you make and the actions you decide to take regardless of how you feel. Keeping your commitment means showing up and being faithful to the pursuit. Every. Single. Day.
E for your Effort…Finally, champions set themselves apart by the effort they choose to give. They’ve built and developed a higher capacity for work by routinely and intentionally stepping outside their comfort zone. They’re willing to push through fatigue – and even pain – as part of their pursuit. They are comfortable being uncomfortable.
There are plenty of circumstances that can and inevitably will challenge your effort. So the question is, what will you allow to keep you from giving your best? You are tired or sore or in pain. Will you allow that to keep you from giving your best? You’re frustrated or bored or feel you’ve been treated unfairly. Will you allow that to keep you from giving your best? You are winning. You are losing. Will you allow either of those to keep you from giving your best? I hope today you’ll see that no circumstance is strong enough to keep you from your best effort unless you allow it. The choice is yours.
That’s the best news about this R.A.C.E., that each one of us is in charge of our own performance. No matter what happens today, you get to choose your response to challenge and adversity. You get to choose your attitude. You get to choose your level of commitment, and you get to choose your effort. So if you want to become your best, if you want to set yourself apart in your pursuit of success, and if you want to become someone worthy of winning? Then do what champions do, and win the R.A.C.E. you’ve been called to run.