Ed looks at the road to success of some of the world’s greatest in sport and business and how we too can reach our goals, even when life knocks us down.
Most of us have our goals, some easier to reach than others. The harder the goals in life are, the harder we have to work for them, sometimes even pushing ourselves through tough times. However when we achieve them, there is no better feeling in the world.
From my point of view, more often than not, my goals relate to something I am passionate about. If we are passionate about achieving something, there is more chance we will be motivated to do it. These are my two favourite examples of this:
• Muhammad Ali was often referred to as one of the greatest sportspeople of all time, but success didn’t come without hardship. In 1971, with Ali on 31 wins and 0 losses he faced the man who was, to me, possibly his greatest rival through his career, Joe Frazier. The fight was named ‘Fight of the century’. Ali lost the fight and recorded his first loss in professional boxing. Following 3 years of hard work, after being put down by Joe Frazier the two came toe-to-toe in the ring once more. This time Ali became the victor. They met again in 1975 in the famous ‘Thriller in Manilla’ fight. Ali came out the victor again.
He was put down at first, but he bounced back and beat his rival twice. His passion for the sport meant he never gave up.
• Sir James Dyson was the man famous for creating Dyson hoovers and one of the greatest entrepreneurs the world knows today. It took Sir James 15 years and all his savings before he developed a bagless prototype that worked. He developed 5,126 prototypes before he was finally happy with the design.
Both of these great individuals were passionately motivated to achieve what they wanted and drove themselves to success in their chosen fields. All of us can achieve what we want if we want it badly enough!
A question I often use to think about my motivation for what I want is ‘What is my why?’. This could be (understandably) confusing, but by asking myself this question I find I can delve deeper into the reasons for doing what I do. I use this technique to ensure my ‘why’ is strong enough to motivate me to do my best and if my ‘why’ isn’t strong enough, chances are I won’t always succeed, and I need to find a better ‘why’.
Why not give this a go?
