Live Out Your Dreams
I knew I wanted to be a great tennis player the night my father took me to the Sparta sports center in Prague, an arena where 10,000 people can watch a hockey game or a tennis match. The big attraction that night was Rod Laver, the redheaded left-hander from Australia. That was around the time he signed a big contract—for $100,000—to travel all over the world to play tennis. That was an unheard-of sum of money in those days, when you consider that my father brought in just $1,000 a year. It was the first time I realized that someone could actually make a living by playing tennis. I always knew I couldn’t be a 9-to-5 worker, not ever. (In the Czech Republic, the workday was 7:00 to 3:00.) I just didn’t know exactly how I was going to avoid it, though, until I saw Rod Laver touring and making good money as a professional tennis player. After seeing Laver play, I knew what world-class tennis was like. I began having dreams about winning on the famous Centre Court at Wimbledon. My father helped put that dream in my head because he believed I could be a great player. He would hit the ball to me for hours, telling me I would be a great champion. That dream was just as vivid in my dad’s head as it was in mine. After George Parma accepted me as a pupil, I’d take the commuter train into Prague to play tennis. There I was, this little pipsqueak of a 9-year-old, lugging all my equipment on the train. I would imagine people asking themselves, “Who is she?” And I would think to myself, “Someday, you’ll know.” You see, I started telling myself when I was little that I’d be a great tennis player, and eventually, I started believing it. Later, I was able to live my dream. Once you start believing in yourself, anything is possible. Of course, I’m not suggesting that you can be an NBA basketball player if you’re 4 feet 11 and haven’t played much basketball. That’s not believing in yourself; that’s fantasy. What I’m talking about, really, is visualization, a powerful tool that’s used by athletes, performers, businesspeople, and others to achieve success. It’s the process of creating detailed mental pictures of yourself achieving a goal or bettering your performance. With visualization, you form an image of what you want to do or become, whether it’s losing weight, changing unhealthy behaviors, mastering a sport, winning a competition, improving your level of physical fitness, or overcoming an addiction. You imagine yourself doing it, and your brain then knows exactly what you want and finds a way to make it happen. For me, if I had already won a match in my mind, I had a better chance of winning it for real. *Excerpted with permission from Shape Your Self: My 6-Step Diet and Fitness Plan to Achieve the Best Shape of Your Life by Martina Navratilova. [pagebreak] Use these tips to achieve your dreams: Tell yourself something often. Tell yourself—that you’ll eat a more healthful diet, for example, or that you’ll exercise or get in better shape. Before long, you’ll start believing it. The more you believe, the more you achieve. Focus on what you want to achieve. For just a few minutes a day, visualize your goal. What does it look like? How do you want to feel? Create the vision in your head and make it vivid, down to the last detail. Adopt a clear vision of how you want your body to look. Imagine how your new body will look, how it will feel, how it will move. Be optimistic but realistic. Practice in your head. Athletes practice mental rehearsal; they create the experience of success in their minds. You could rehearse in your head how you’ll resist temptation. Or maybe you’re thinking about skipping your workout. Picture yourself at the gym, exercising and experiencing the positive feelings you get from your workout. When you regularly focus on a successful outcome, you increase your potential to make it reality. Give your dream a chance to come true. I take skating lessons because I want to be the best ice hockey player I can be. What you eat, what you drink, how you train, what you do with your body and your health—your whole life, really—is all in your power. Set small daily goals. They are easier to reach, and when you accomplish them, you’ll have a sense of success and the forward momentum it brings. When you feel empowered by achieving daily goals, you’re more likely to keep climbing that ladder—and get to the top of your game, whatever that is. Make sure your goals are measurable. When I run a mile on the track, I time myself because I have a specific goal for how fast I want to run. If I previously did a 7:45 mile, I want to do 7:35 next time. Wearing a heart rate monitor or a pedometer to count steps can help you measure progress, too. Diet-wise, keep track of what and how much you eat. Set flexible goals. Your goals need to be flexible enough to accommodate the unexpected. Life is always changing. You don’t give up on your plans; you adjust. Acknowledge all of your efforts. If you’ve given your goals your all, putting your heart into them, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t quite make it. Whenever people ask me how many Wimbledons I’ve won, I say, “Nine; could’ve been 10, but I’m not complaining.” The key is to have the same attitude toward goal-setting. If you do, you’ll move through your life with far greater success. More from Prevention: How To Get Your Workout Motivation Back
