There are 300 million people playing football in different clubs across the globe according to Fifa.com. Out of these 300 million players, only about 100,000 are actually professional footballers…
The above stats are only for football. There are thousands of sports with millions of people playing them. Yet, in general, there are only a very few “elite athletes” in each sport. This raises the question; What are the common traits in an athlete?
After analyzing quite a few athletes, here are my 3 observations which make the difference amongst many other traits.
Insane desire
After training hours upon hours and doing mostly the same bloody thing, it can get exhausting. Most amateur athletes would give up when it becomes this tiring. But professionals love it!
Cristiano Ronaldo, the highest paid athlete, works out intensely for 5 hours a day! On top of this, he does “light” workouts such as swimming for another 2 hours.
“It is impossible to follow Ronaldo in training. When we arrive, he is already training, when we leave, he is still training, I have never seen a player like that” – Douglas Costa, Footballer.
Cristiano Ronaldo has an insane desire to be the best. This desire allows him to train his body to break limits and gain unparalleled success.
Laser sharp focus
Kikkan Randall was national-level good at running, swimming and skiing. Yet she knew that in order for her to become the best, she has to choose one sport. After, thinking deeply, she made the choice of Skiing.
Today she is world champion in Skiing…
An average human can be “good” at almost 250 different things! But to become an “elite athlete”, you need to forget the other 249 things.
So,
Focus. On. One. Thing.
Learning from failures
In his early days, Mohamed Ali once hired an “expert” to assess if he could ever become a professional boxer. The “expert” conducted multiple tests and Ali failed them all. The “expert” concluded that Ali could never be a professional.
Ali learnt from his failures and became one of the best boxers in boxing history.
Similarly, we should learn that failures are part and parcel of our lives. Failure should be a building block toward success.
Ergo, if anyone wants to become an athlete, they must be practising these traits. In fact, these traits can be used for any aspect of life to be successful!
Do you think there are any other traits which are more important than these three? Let me know below in the comment section!