personal successes

He said he would win eight gold medals and he did. It was that simple. He wasn’t bragging about how great he was; he was simply stating a goal he wanted to achieve, and went ahead and just did it. He was just matter of fact. He envisioned a goal over the horizon, and simply swam his heart out till he snatched up the gold medals one by one, much to the disbelief and awe of the world. The world stood still for a moment and watched the machine called Michael Phelps take command of the cameras simply by doing.

Michael Phelps should be the new poster child for Nike; this man not only lives by the words “Just Do It”, he has proven to the world that those very words are not mere taglines. They can be made reality for all of us, because he just proved it at the Olympics. While his feat may be admirable and makes a lot of us want to be like him, the fact is, it is not easy. Not many of us can say ‘this is what I want to achieve’ and get it. But why not? What is the difference between him, people like him and the rest of the world? Surely all of us who admire Michael Phelps’ success would want the secret formula that can enable us to achieve practically anything we put our minds to. Swimming, sports, work, life and play – these are the areas where we would like to excel in and I think just by looking at Michael Phelps can we understand what it is that drives him. Drive.

Ambition; it burned like a fire even through those goggles as the camera panned to his steel-like vision of confidence and focus. Unwavering, he simply concentrated on the task at hand and kept on swimming. He was able to do it because he was dead set on achieving the goal he had set for himself, and for the glory of having achieved those publicly announced goals. His desire for success was unparalleled to anything else, and undaunted, he pushed himself to the brink of his own abilities and finally achieved his desires. Behind the story is a tale of hard work and months of countless training.

It is ingrained deep into our psyche; the primal instinct of chasing after something if you want it badly enough. If we are desperate enough to achieve something we will do everything in our power to get it, and Michael Phelps did just that. He did everything in his power to train his body to endure what must have been a torturous amount of punishment and exertion, until he broke expectations during the Olympics. However even if we train our bodies for success we also need to keep in mind that we need to keep ourselves grounded. No matter what you think, there may be someone out there better than you, faster than you, smarter than you and you can never measure your own personal successes in absolutes. This outrageous swimmer was no cocky sportsman after his victory; he acknowledged the need to further improve himself.

To be a success you have to recognise that sometimes, enough is never enough and that keeps the fire burning within you. Keep the fire burning inside you, the desire to achieve whatever success you may be after. These are the examples that we can follow, timeless advice that will apply to whoever we are, however old we may be and will give us the edge to success.