Are You Ready For Success?

Everyone wants to be successful. Everyone wants to have more, be more, do more, and enjoy more of what life has to offer. Human beings are teleological. That is, we are goal-seeking organisms. We are driven continually forward toward the accomplishment of the things that are important to us.

The entire human race is a huge mass of individuals striving toward the realization of their potentials in every area. Because of this, there is tremendous competition for the good things in life. Everybody wants them and no one is ever fully satisfied. The satisfaction of want or desire leads automatically to a want or desire for something else. And it never ends.

The Will to Win

What then is the difference between those who accomplish a lot and those who accomplish a little? It was the University of Alabama football coach, Bear Bryant, who said, “It is not the will to win but the will to prepare to win that counts.”

And therein lies the answer to the question. Everyone wants to be a winner. But very few people want to engage in the rigorous hard work, hour after hour, month after month, year after year, that is required to prepare themselves to win.

Mary Lou Retton, the gold medalist winner in the 1984 Los Angeles women’s gymnastics, said that she gave up all the activities of a normal childhood, from the age of seven, in order to prepare to win in the Olympic Games. For nine solid years, she paid an incredible price in terms of practice, practice, practice, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out.

She missed the opportunities for dating, parties, the Senior Prom and much of the social activities that young people engage in. But she knew from the beginning that winning the Olympics would only be possible if she was willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice in terms of hard, hard work, for months and years in advance.