Have you ever heard the cheer, “you’ve got to want it to win it, and we want it more?” While talent and hard work play a part when competing, I believe the words in that cheer are the key to unlocking someone’s full potenial.

Winning isn’t just something that happens, you have to want it–no, you have believe you can achieve it–then translate that into a shear power of will that transforms your body into something that will accept nothing less.

I’ve seen it in all kinds of sports and all kinds of levels of ability. I even remember doing it when I played softball as a young girl, standing out on the pitcher’s mound. There were times when my mind was so clear, not hoping to win but knowing I would win. My accuracy would rise, the velocity of my pitches would increase. It’s like I suddenly had complete control of the game and no batter could touch what I threw. Sadly, keeping that kind of mental assurity at all times seems to be the biggest challenge. To this day, I don’t know how get another athlete to feel what I’m talking about, because I’m not sure how I found it whenever “it” happened in the first place. It just sort of happened.

I’ve seen kids, especially in wrestling, who have seemed to crack that code. You can tell by the way they walk out on the mat every single time. “I’ve got this match,” is what their eyes say. And if their opponent doesn’t have the same look in their eye, it’s going to be a very short match. I don’t know how we get the boys of the wrestling team my husband coaches to rise to that level of believe, but until we do it’s going to be long season of suffering before mid-February gets here and wrestling is over.