On a congruent note, there is a strange paradox that we have run into this past year in terms of leadership. An air of hypocrisy, double standards, and lack of appropriate role models to look up to hangs in the air, from our current president on down.

We all need to stop settling for what society has deemed to be a normal standard—doing the minimum, instant gratification, limited accountability, mediocrity, discrimination, laziness, sexism, and the list goes on. Our world needs great leaders, and that starts with each and every one of us. Here are some summarizations of things I’ve read and experienced that have helped me immensely in my own quest for self-growth.

“What you are shouts so loudly in my ears, I cannot hear what you say.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be Who You Say You Are

This is an important character quality to possess. No one respects someone who says one thing and then does the opposite, that’s obvious, right? To lead others, you must take an inside-out approach, meaning you first need to be able to lead yourself.

This requires discipline, commitment, openness to change, and the willingness to grow. A famous quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson reads, “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears, I cannot hear what you say,” or as we would say in modern times, walk it like you talk it.

Don’t Compare

On the subject of quotes, I heard a beautiful saying this summer, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” How simple and true is that? If we live comparing ourselves to our peers, to social expectations of who we should be, or to our own glorified self-image, we will continually be disappointed.

This is one area I admit I have really struggled with through my twenties and it has robbed me of self-confidence and happiness too many times. Some of the most influential and effective people I’ve read about or met all agree, don’t waste energy or focus measuring yourself up to anyone else, keep your eyes forward and only measure yourself against who you were yesterday. To grow, we must take advantage of the lessons and opportunities we are given every day.

Lead So Others May Follow

If you are in a leadership position now and were to experience a day through the eyes of someone who works under you or looks up to you, would you like what you saw? Would you be a leader that you would like to follow and who treats others how you would like to be treated? All of these are important questions to continually ask yourself, as power can play negatively on our human tendencies and has potential to cause complacency, ego inflation, and blindness.

?An outstanding leader will radiate integrity, empathy, justice, patience, and humility. An outstanding leader will expect of themselves what they expect of others and are lighthouses in the darkest of storms. They get people to follow because they are willing to do even the most simple and “puny” of tasks to accomplish the overall team goal.

They are willing to deeply listen and provide direction when needed. An outstanding leader will push people to be better by showing them how, not dragging them along like a tugboat, trying to get them to where they want to go.

Be Able to Self-Reflect

I will just open this section by shamelessly saying that no one likes a know-it-all. I will be the first to admit that the majority of the principles outlined in this post have not come from my own experiences.

I love to read and learn from others with great reputations, or who I trust and respect. Some of my favorite books are listed to the right, with brief summaries of each outlined in a separate post worth another five minutes of your time.

Personally, these books have all helped me self-reflect on the choices I make, whether large (what direction I want to take in life) or small (how to approach someone with an issue). Many are written from the author’s personal experiences, how they overcame certain things to survive, become successful, be a great leader, and so much more.

Make Excellence a Habit

The final take away from this post is the age-old principle that we are what we repeatedly do. Your thoughts lead to your beliefs, which lead to your actions, which become your character. No matter how small or unimportant a task may seem, our resolve to do everything to the best of our ability creates habits of excellence.

Thus, something as small as tying your shoes properly to as large as leading a team to a championship should be done as best as we can. If you make excellence a habit, and not just a now and then decision, you will become the author of your life and not the victim of circumstance, “bad luck,” or the hardships that you’ve endured because of other people. Become a leader from the inside out.

The post Be a Lighthouse: Lessons on Leadership appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

As Gandhi once famously said, “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.” The man could not have only been a great civil rights leader, but also an amazing coach.

It is imperative for athletes to understand how closely confidence is linked to success. The following five strategies are things coaches seldom talk about, but when they are applied to your daily grind they can make all the difference in your overall confidence and your long-term success as an athlete.

1. Choose Your Circle Wisely

Who you surround yourself with has a tremendous influence on who you will become and is reflective of who you are now. These will be the people who are either going to the gym with you to get in an extra workout or the ones egging you on to come to a party with them. The bottom line is for your circle of friends is: do they make you better or do they bring you down?

Action Strategy: Set several personal goals for practice or training with a trusted teammate or workout partner every day. They are now your accountability buddy and if they see you doing something that is not in alignment with your goals, they can call you out and vice versa.

2. Seek the Truth

It takes a person of high character to actively seek out information that they may not want to hear but need to hear. This is where your circle comes in to play. Surround yourself with people who care about you so much they are willing to tell you something you need to hear in order to help you, even if there is a risk it could make you mad or upset.

Remember, it’s never easy to hear difficult things, but opening yourself to opportunities of humility will ultimately make you better overall person and athlete. Here’s the kicker though, you must be receptive to what they say and at all costs avoid shooting the messenger. You need to enlist the help of someone to give you a different perspective than your own. This is absolutely critical for your growth as an athlete and a person.

Action Strategy: List three people right now you can trust to honestly tell you something you need to hear. If you can’t, it’s time to start forming those relationships.

3. Stay Hungry

No matter how much or how little success you are having at this moment, do not stop working. You have to believe in your ability to reach your goals and that your hard work will pay off—it always does. There is a massive difference between believing in yourself and being entitled to an outcome because you think you’ve worked hard for it. Again, does your circle keep it real with you?

Action Strategy: Write down your goal, then outline the goals you need to accomplish in the next month, and then finally goals you want to accomplish this week, all targeted toward reaching your overall goal. By laying these out in reverse order you establish your vision and then pave the way to it with small, achievable steps.

4. Have Selective Hearing

The one voice you need to be listening to, even if you are not in any way spiritual, is the voice of faith. Faith, or believing in yourself, is the voice that silences the critics and fans because they don’t know your process. They don’t know the sweat, blood, and tears that you put in; they don’t know what you are working towards. And really, they don’t know you.

Action Strategy: It’s darn near impossible not to hear what people outside of your circle say, so instead of walking around with earmuffs and deleting all social media, strengthen your selective hearing and toughen your skin. In other words, hear them, but don’t listen, take it personally, or respond emotionally. Only you need to believe in yourself and your process. Actively work on positive self-talk so you begin to drown out the voice that tells you “I can’t” with the voice that tells you “I can.”

5. Trust the Process

If you haven’t noticed already, the four lessons before this are all interwoven in some way. Ultimately, these all constitute your process, and when you are confident that you are doing things the right way, which is in accordance with your values and vision, then you must trust that with persistent action and work, you will get to where you want to go.

There will undoubtedly be times you are tested on this, and your tests may come when you aren’t ready for them, that’s why it is so important to have good people surrounding you that you can lean on and will help you. They are there not only to tell you what you need to hear but to be positive with you when you are having a hard time doing that for yourself.

Action Strategies:

1. If your process ever starts to feel out of line with your values and vision, then re-evaluate and refine.
2. Build meaningful relationships. Be there for people when they need you because at some point you will need them as well.

The post 5 Strategies for Athletic Success appeared first on Breaking Muscle.