Way of the Champion. Jerry Lynch, Ph.D.

      MY PURPOSE and vision for writing this book begin with a simple mission statement: to guide and mentor you on your journey to being the absolute best you can be in athletics and life, using the lessons learned from champions. Having stated that, my purpose and vision are crystal-clear as I embark upon this project’s path to completion.

      So it is with you, whether you are building a career in sport, building a house, or building a family. Being a champion, you need to begin with a simple, definitive mission statement before you take the first step on your long journey. As an athlete, you might consider, as your mission, to be the best you can be. From here, your purpose is to find out from the experts all the things you need to know and do to make this happen. Then you create the images and vision of yourself accomplishing goals and feeling what it might be like to achieve your full potential. This could be a national championship, an all-American, an age-group winner in your sport, a great parent, or a terrific architect and builder of homes.

      From a simple mission statement, you learn how to plan the work, then work the plan. Schools and universities do this all the time. For example, most institutions of higher learning have as their mission to educate students intellectually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Knowing this, they can begin to develop a curriculum that will attempt to fulfill the mission.

      For you, be a champion now by zeroing in on your mission in sports and/or life at this point in time. Start by filling in the statement: “In my sport/life, I am on a mission to ______.” The blank is filled in with a specific higher type of goal. For example, you wouldn’t say you are on a mission to win the national championship or write a book. That may be a good vision, but your mission, or specific goal, is to find ways to be the best you can be, like lift weights three times a week or write two pages every day. From this, the championship or book becomes a more plausible reality.

      There’s a fine line between missions, goals, and visions, but try to remember this: A mission statement is an umbrella concept, a simple statement that subsumes numerous goals and tasks. Your mission should help you to formulate goals to identify tasks that, when accomplished, should fulfill the mission. Mission statements are your foundations that help you build castles in the sky. For example, from working with the University of California Santa Cruz men’s soccer program, I know that their mission is to use soccer to guide and foster the physical, emotional, and spiritual development of the players. Although winning games is not the foundational emphasis of his program, the head coach, my friend Paul Holocher, is confident that this approach will produce wins as a natural byproduct of the actualization of the mission. From their mission, they have developed a moral code to live by and a plan to elevate their game of soccer. After only six years, Paul’s team was ranked third in the nation, playing in the NCAA Championship game, in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year. All this was the result of following their strong, meaningful mission statement.