It’s July 5 – back to work in the USA after the Independence Day holiday weekend. I hope you enjoyed your long weekend as much as I did mine. I spent some time on my bicycle, enjoying the beautiful Denver weather. Here is my first post Independence Day bit of career advice.
Novak Djokovic won the men’s title at Wimbledon on Sunday. He has been incredibly dominant this year. He has lost one match – the French Open semifinal to Roger Federer – while winning 48 matches and eight titles. He is now the Number 1 tennis player in the world.
After the match, he said that he credits his losses to Federer and Rafael Nadal for helping him get where he is today…
“I give credit to them for my improvement as well, because I’ve played so many matches against Federer and Nadal, especially at the big tournaments, big matches, big stages and I was losing most of those big matches, but now it has turned around, because I started believing I could win.”
Tweet 44 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Be an optimist. Believe that things will work out well. Don’t sulk when they don’t. Learn what you can and use it next time.” By replaying his bog match losses to Federer and Nadal in his mind and learning from them, Novak Djokovic became more optimistic about his ability to beat both of them. He now has beaten Nadal five straight times.
Just like Novak Djokovic If you don’t believe you can win, if you don’t believe you can create your life and career success dreams, you won’t. If you do believe, if you’re an optimist, you’re on the right path to winning tennis tournaments — and, more impoirtant, creating your life and career success.
But believing is not enough. It will set you up for career success, but you will still find times when you fail. That’s where the second piece of career advice in Tweet 44 in Success Tweets comes in. Don’t sulk when you fail or lose. Treat every failure and loss as a learning experience. Use failures and losses as stepping stones to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.
Novak Djokovic personifies this career advice. He credits his losses to Federer and Nadal as giving him the motivation, self confidence and insight into himself to raise his game to a really high level.
Self confidence was important in Djokovic’s win on Sunday. But as I listened to his interviews on the court immediately after the match and with John McEnroe in the locker room, he mentioned the words “hard work” at least 10 times. Yes, he is more confident these days. Part of his confidence comes from winning, but a lot of it comes from improving his game due to a lot of hard work.
Tweet 100 in Success Tweets says, “Care about what you do. If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer. If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.” Novak Djokovic cared about winning Wimbledon so much that he picked a few blades of grass from center court and ate them right after the match.
Let’s switch sports for a minute. The Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2009. After that game I wrote a blog post about Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin. The day after the Super Bowl he said that because the Steelers were in the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl, he was “a month behind getting ready for the next season. We’ve got to be thoughtful in how we prepare our football team.”
I posted….
Some may say, “Chill, Mike, savor what you’ve just accomplished.” However, Mike Tomlin knows that outstanding performers don’t rest on their laurels. They care about what they do, and they care about their life and career success. High performers always set higher goals and look towards greater achievements. The Optimist Creed urges us to “Press on to the greater achievements of the future.”
That’s what Mike Tomlin was doing the day after he won the Super Bowl, and that’s what all outstanding performers do. They set high goals and meet them. Then they set higher goals and meet them too.
Novak Djokovic is the same way. On Monday, before leaving England to spend some time at home in Belgrade Serbia he said…
“I want to improve. The example for me is Nadal. A few years ago we all knew how dominant he was on clay but maybe not so much on the other surfaces. Nobody thought he could get any better but he did. Me too, I still consider myself as a player with something to prove and to improve my game.
“I’ve never been number one in the world so I don’t really know what it feels like yet. But I’m going to experience that in this next period of my career. They say it’s harder to stay number one than to get to number one. I will see if that’s true or not but I will definitely try to stay there as long as I can.”
Novak Djokovic is a great example of someone who lives the career advice in tweet 100 in Success Tweets. He cares. Immediately after winning Wimbledon and becoming the Number 1 player in the world, he’s talking about working hard to improve. That’s what successful people do and what you should do if you want to create the life and career success you deserve.
Tweet 30 in Success Tweets says, “Success is a journey, not a destination. When you accomplish one goal, reach higher and set a new one.” Novak Djokovic isn’t treating his victory at Wimbledon as a destination – even though it the tournament he visualized himself winning as a child. He has set a new goal of staying Number 1 in the world as long as he can.
“For now the goal is to have some time for myself and enjoy the victory. Then I want to come back and win more titles, more majors. I’m a professional and that is what I’m made for. The U.S. Open is the next big thing. Hard courts are still my best surface.”
The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Self confidence is an important key to life and career success. Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon and became the Number 1 tennis player in the world after he figured out how to use his losses in major tournaments to build his self confidence. But self confidence is not enough. You have to do the work. Point 4 of The Optimist Creed says, “Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.” In other words, believe in yourself, but do the work. Finally, as Tweet 30 in Success Tweets says, “Success is a journey, not a destination. When you accomplish one goal, reach higher and set a new one.” Successful people don’t rest on their laurels. They focus on how they can get better. That’s what Super Bowl winning coaches and Wimbledon winners do – and that’s what you need to do if you want to create the life and career success you deserve.
That’s the career advice I found in Novak Djokovic’s Wimbledon victory. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment. As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained. It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy. You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.
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