Veronica Karaman’s 7 Swings of Championship:
1. Creating your true champion identity profile.
Most definitions of what it means to be a champion are determined by an outside-in process. In contrast, a true champion is defined from an inside-out process. You are a champion based on who you are, not on what you accomplish. It begins with your identity.
I used to step up on the first tee hoping to win a tournament because then I could become a champion. I have since learned that I am a champion before I ever step up to the first tee. A true champion plays from a place of victory, not to achieve it. The most powerful place from which a person can live and perform is from a place of true identity. If you can define who you truly are and then live and perform from that core place of identity, you are living out your championship.
Thus, the first step in the true champion process is helping people define who they truly are as a champion. This process is highly individual and unique. You define who you are as a champion. By defining your highest self from an authentic place you will begin to hit the sweetspot in the execution of your life and work more often, and you feel the pureness of your shots hit from the true core of your being.
The first swing of championship is accomplished through personal coach training and a unique identity profile assessment I have created based on your values, gifts, and beliefs.
2. Discovering and honoring your true champion dream.
According to Dr. David Cook, sports psychologist and my former mental game coach, there are two distinguishing features of champions: focus and passion. Most people live far below their passion quota because they are not honoring or pursuing their God-given dreams. Achievable dreams and visions have the capacity within themselves to release passion in you once you begin to pursue them.
Once you discover who you are as a champion, the second swing involves an uncovering process of what your championship is, which begins with identifying your dream and then forming goals and action steps to move it from your heart into reality.
The second swing of championship is accomplished through personal coach training that opens up your mind and heart to new possibilities and fresh starts created from a safe emotional place for your dream to surface and be validated.
3. Designing your personal championship course.
Champions are those who willingly and joyfully submit to training. Without training, there is no championship.
People lack focus and passion in their lives because they have no championship to pursue. All other challenges in our lives become redefined once they are within the scope of a championship. Setbacks, hazards, obstacles, defeats are swallowed up in a perspective of overcoming victory when one’s eye is on a prize.
A personal championship can be about losing weight, making a comeback, reaching a lost relationship, overcoming a disease, qualifying for state championships, unlocking your intellectual potential, selling your house and moving to your dream spot.
The third swing of championship is accomplished through coach training and creating a structure around your dream which includes a specific process using champion mindsets, goal setting and achieving.
4. Identifying your personal drivers.
A true champion is motivated out of a clear sense of identity. If the core identity of someone is an athlete, then getting that person in touch with who they truly are is the wellspring of their motivation.
Identifying your personal drivers is about helping a person get in touch with the essence of who they really are.
When my mother was dying and given six months to live at 85 years old, nothing in the world could motivate her….until I put an 8 iron in her hand. In her first swing, she hit that club almost 100 yards. Both our eyes popped open. By the third ball, she had fresh fire in her eyes! Mom was back. I did nothing to motivate her, but get her in touch with her core wiring as an undeveloped athlete. She lived almost seven more years once she became connected to her core wiring which naturally released her motivation.
The fourth swing of championship is accomplished through coaching training that helps a person discover his or her driving motivations, that is, what gives them natural energy to purse something. A motivational gifts assessment may also be administered to help a person discover his or her natural wiring.
5. Activating your 4 champion zones for target orientation.
In the True Champion formation process, we focus on a person’s four energy sources:
mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. We turn these four energy sources into four champion zones. When a person can swing down the fairway of all four zones concurrently, he is advancing towards his target and achieving peak performance. The key is to specifically identify process-oriented goals in each zone to help a person see what swing-thoughts and practices he needs to work on in order to hit his target and advance in achieving his personal championship.
When a person gets clarity on these four zones and the process-oriented goals he needs to work on in each zone, remarkable results usually occur. I immediately think of Brendon Seyes, who after only 2 Skype coaching sessions, accomplished a goal far beyond his expectations. When we identified a specific practice routine that helped him focus and then a mental process that helped him open up his mind to the possibility of winning, he went out and shot a career best 66 and ran away with a big junior golf championship in Canada. Brendon was 12 years old.
Your champion zones can include practices of champion students, such as creating a dedicated study hour, exercising daily, having quiet time, reaching out to make new friends, or making a certain number of sales calls. They are the zones that “hold” your process-oriented goals and create your training routines.
The fifth swing of championship is accomplished through coach training and the very specific identification and selection of the precise practices and habits it will take executing on a regular basis to move you forward in your championship. We choose one practice in each zone to work on at any one time.
6. Calling and hitting your process-oriented shots.
All great achievements move from the invisible realm to the visible realm. In athletics, it is a common practice to visualize your shots before you hit them. In the True Champion formation process, you call your shots before you hit them. “Shots” are the process-oriented goals you select to advance you down your fairway towards your target. Shots are the habits and practices you execute on a daily basis in the time frame in which you determine to hit them.
Swing 6 is a real paradigm changer for most people. We are taught to focus on the target, but no on the processes that will lead to the target. Teachers tell students to work hard, but they don’t tell them the processes of studying hard, such as creating dedicated study hours, creating reward systems, discovering your best concentration period of the day, etc. When students get clear on their process-oriented goals, leaps in their grades occur. Just as Isaac Winter-Hartley who went from a 2.2 GPA to a 3.8 GPA in just 12 weeks when he identified his process-oriented goals and then executed them. His parents are now rewarding him with a dream vacation to Mexico!
The sixth swing of championship is accomplished through coach training and the charting of executing specific process-oriented shots in one’s daily, weekly, and monthly schedule.
7. Creating your caddy club support system.
One of the unique features of the True Champion formation process is the belief that all championship takes place within the context of relationship. How many times have you pursued a goal and felt all alone, needing motivation and inspiration, but did not have what it took to do it all by yourself?
I believe people need a great cloud of witnesses to accomplish any worthwhile championship. The best championships are those that not only receive encouragement from others, but give it. A caddy club is an intentional encouragement circle designed specifically to invite your friends and family into your championship. After all, every great championship needs great cheerleaders and spectators! Your performance is meant to inspire others. Others are meant to encourage you.
When I was trying out for the U.S. Open one year, I had 80 people in my caddy club. Every Sunday night I would send out an email, sharing my victories that week and prayer needs for the upcoming week. The faith, encouragement, and inspiration I both gave and received was one of the most rewarding aspects of my personal championship.
My true champions have benefited greatly from opening up their championship for their circle of influence to join them in their conquest. When they lost motivation, it was their caddy club who kept them motivated.
The seventh swing of championship is accomplished through a set of instructions helping people to develop their own caddy club support system and a set of recommendations on the best way to communicate through their championship.
The ultimate goal
The ultimate goal of the true champion process is personal growth. Taking the pressure off of a person to merely perform and onto their growth as a whole person produces not only great results, but fruitfulness in a person’s life.
Process-oriented goals help eliminate unnecessary doubt, negativity, discouragement and failure by focusing on growing, and not perfection.
Cultivating one’s gifts, talents, and dreams within the context of relationships always produces rewards even if one falls short of a pursued goal.
I invite you to check out True Champion coaching and join me in creating a whole new breed of champions!