Have you ever noticed how much of a difference attitude makes in sports? Great football teams don't come to the game with a loser's attitude. The come to play hard and win. They have an attitude aimed for success. If even one member of the team isn't feeling it and just has that loser's attitude, it wrecks the entire game. It makes that much of a difference.
This is very true academically as well. Your attitude in school makes all of the difference - whether optimistic or pessimistic. Do you see a challenge and think "I can do this" or do you pull back and say "I can't do this, so I'm not even going to try." In order to succeed, you have be able to look at that book that's thicker than it is wide and say "I can do this!" You need that winner's attitude. Similarly, when you write you must write like you know, not how you "think." You need to write with authority. Now, is this easy? No, most of the time it isn't, but just like any sport, it will take practice.
Any athlete or performer will tell you that next to practice, the most important thing is warming up. If you just go out on that field and play hard, you will most definitely pull a muscle, or worse. You need preparation. The best way to prepare for any tough thing is to do it lightly at first. For a sprinter, this means doing a little jogging; for a musician, playing a slow and simple piece helps; for a writer, taking notes or skim reading the book can help you get an idea of what it's about. Just start slowly.
Next, you need to keep your game up, you need stamina; and what better way than by feeding yourself good stuff. Sure a football player can cram in the junk food every now and then, he needs the carbohydrates, but in order to keep himself going, he needs something better that his body can actually use. He needs that protein to help keep his muscles going. For a writer those yummy carbohydrates are fun books, but what a good writer needs to keep them going is some tough stuff. They need the meatier books, the books with more useful information that can be applied to their writing. You need to have ideas backing you up when the going gets tough.
Another important thing is that you have to be willing to work for it. Do you think those NFL football players got where they are by sitting on the couch eating potato chips all day? No! they trained hard. They had to be willing to get battered and bruised to become the best. One of the most important things in any type of performance situation is your work ethic. Are you barely stepping up to the minimum, or are you reaching for that high bar? To get to the top of that ladder, you'll need to do some reaching. It's like that one famous saying, "it is better to aim at the sky and hit an eagle, than to aim at the eagle and hit a rock." You can't just go for the minimum word count and write for a "C." You need to get out there, write, and write well. Don't wait until that last minute and get a crudely put together, mess of a paper. Start ahead of time so you can put your all into it. I know, it is very easy to become overwhelmed with all of this work, but just trust me it will be well worth it in the end. Don't see it as a huge obstacle needing to be overcome, see it as just a small detail in your ultimate goal of success.
Now, you don't have to be an athlete to understand this. It can apply to almost any performance situation, whether you job or, as we have already seen, academically. I am a musician, a classical guitarist, and this applies so much to my performance. If I want a performance that moves a crowd, I need to be willing to go beyond my comfort zone. I need to be willing to get softer and put some feeling into that sweet part and rumble those strings on that emotional swell. I need to be willing to get loud and put some attitude into my music as well. I need to focus, or my music will just sound disconnected. You need to give your all. If you're not feeling it and you don't have that winner's attitude, it just won't work.
Thus, attitude can become the winning or losing decision in any game. The way you see these obstacles ahead of you will determine whether you make it in the end or not. It is your own choice from the very beginning whether you will succeed. Now, get out there and write to win!
Questions, nice comments, and ideas are great. The whole idea of this blog is to help me better my writing. Any positive feedback is welcome.
