How to Be a Champion
Champions do so much more than win. Part attitude, part natural ability, and part hard work, living your life like a champion is possible in all walks of life, whether you're an athlete, academic, or air-traffic controller. You can learn to find the right kind of championship and define success for yourself, laying the groundwork with a training regimen, and how to be a good winner who carries yourself like a champ. See Step 1 for more information.
Finding Your Championship
Identify your natural talents. Champions identify the gifts that they've been given and seek to develop them into expertise. Competitive skill, natural athletic ability, and other talents are the seed from which championships grow, but they need to be watered with intelligent focus and hard training. You can't hop straight into the NBA or get hired on as a CEO for a tech company without identifying your talents and training to improve them.
Identify your limitations. An athlete who is not gifted with blazing speed can make up for it by increasing their agility, strength, jumping ability, or strategy, but it's important to be honest. If you're an intelligent soccer player, you won't develop an attachment for playing striker if your shot is inaccurate, but your defending skills are top-notch.
Explore different fields of play. Explore lots of competitive and non-competitive fields to see where you might be great. Diversify your talents and find your expertise.
Maybe you've idolized LeBron James since childhood and can't get it out of your head to be a professional basketball champion, just like him. If you can't shoot your way out of a cardboard box and stumble on your own feet when you try to shoot a lay-up, that might be hard. But maybe you're built like Dick Butkus, or you can do the quadratic formula in your head–maybe you were destined for greatness in some other field.
Play lots of different sports, even if you're worried you won't be good. If you love football, try out volleyball to develop hand-eye-coordination and see if your skills translate. If you love playing tennis, try out a team sport like soccer to see if you don't enjoy playing a role in a group of champions.
Choose to master every skill. Approach every new field of play with the desire to be great at it, with the expectation you will master it. When you're learning how to cook, when you're learning how to drive a manual transmission vehicle, when you're learning to speak German, treat it like you're walking onto the field of competition and that you'll come out champion.