10. It is not always about winning. Champions know it is about learning how to lose, get up, and go again. Over and over. 

If you’re a competitive cheerleader, statistically speaking, you will not win. That’s not us being negative or wishing you less-than-amazing success. It’s just the math of how competitive sport works. Competitive divisions are usually more than 1 team. Sometimes a LOT of teams. And there’s just one winner. So in a very broad sense, the math says you are more likely to lose than you are to win. 

The true champions know that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s great. The odds stacked against you is a great opportunity to use the situation as fuel. It gives you a chance to learn how to push on when it seems the most difficult. It is your opportunity to get up and try again and again and again until you hit the best you’ve ever done. And then it gives you a new goal to reach for next time. The ability to lose, look around, decide what you need to do to get better... all of that is very important to your success in every area of life. It’s what makes it so wonderful when you do get your moment to win the way you wanted it to happen all along. 

Your challenge is to consider what you allow your next loss to do for you. What will you make that loss mean? Will you use it to show how resilient you are? Will you use it as your fuel to get up and work more specifically towards your goals? Or will you watch others do that and pass you up? 

Champions take responsibility for the meaning they assign to the obstacles. Instead of allowing challenges to foster weakness, champions use them to get stronger. 

Question for the cheerleaders: Have you ever tried to tumble with your eyes closed? Or tried to fly with your eyes closed? It’s really hard. Andrea knows this first hand. She’s been legally blind since birth (too much oxygen in the incubator). She could have listened to the naysayers that said she can’t be a cheerleader because of the visual impairment, but she chose instead to assign a different meaning to that obstacle. Instead of a challenge that created an impossible barrier, being legally blind became an opportunity to learn to tumble and stunt in a way that nobody else in the world had ever learned. She learned muscle memory and body awareness in a way that not only served her as an elite level athlete, but also served the people she worked with. Andrea has trained coaches and athletes around the world to master body awareness and muscle memory the way she learned it- a very tactile way that allows the athlete to feel what they’re doing wrong, self-diagnose, self-correct, and be more consistent performers overall.

So the question is: What challenges in your life feel heavy for you? What meaning are you giving to those challenges? What are you willing to do to make those obstacles your stepping-stones? 

Champions are built from a foundation of faith, empathy, curiosity, compassion, and humility. 

We live in a world of social media and Influencers. No matter your take on it, the fact remains: There are athletes who have found themselves in a more amplified role-model position than average. On the surface, it may seem they got to that point because they’re talented. Or pretty/ handsome. Or good at social media. But we challenge you to look deeper than the filters and number of likes. Look at who your online role models really are in their character. In almost every case, the long term influencers have earned respect in much smaller circles long before they had respect in world-wide circles based on their own character. They work hard for what they have and build relationships that are meaningful- with faith, forgiveness, compassion, and humility. In other words, no amount of talent, good looks, great uniforms, and awesome Instagram pictures will make up for lack of critical character traits like faith, empathy, compassion, curiosity and humility. 

How do you prioritize your personal faith (if that’s what you have in your life)? Do you have faith in your teammates and in your coaching staff and in your parents as they work for your best interest? Are you willing to forgive when someone hurts you? Have empathy when others struggle, get curious to expand on their experiences and cultures? Are you willing to have compassion as you consider how your words and actions make others feel? Are you humble as you make strides in your skill set and accomplishments? 

Even when It hurts, champions have an intrinsic, un-relenting drive to press on. 

We teach a lot in our work with athletes, coaches, and parents about the science of motivation to build success. The research shows the creation of intrinsic motivation is the key to driving all of us through the difficult challenges. What’s that? Intrinsic motivation is that drive that comes from within you rather than motivation that comes from outside sources like a coach or expectations from the world around you. Intrinsic motivation can help you achieve success even when you face what seems like impossible challenges. 

When we were in our young “baton twirling days” (about age 6-11), we got up at dark-thirty in the morning every day to do drills of basic skills and fundamental elements. After school, we worked several hours as well. In the summer as we were leading up to the World Championships, it was not unusual for us to work 8- hour days in the gym. And although we’ve seen cases in every sport where that kind of dedication is parent-driven, in our case, it was definitely not. We truly wanted to be there. We wanted to press on. When we messed up (often!) the baton would hit us and make bruises. A lot of them. We sometimes got hit in the face- and we especially hated getting hit in the nose. But we were doing what we loved. We were having fun. We wanted to get better. So we always pressed on. 

Where is your motivation coming from now? From within or from other factors on the outside? Are you willing to work for your goals or are you willing to work like you’ve never worked before? Big difference. 

Champions practice for first place. 

During our final year at the University of Texas, Andrea had moved on to her student teaching portion of coursework for her degree in Education, but Aly was still cheering, getting ready for UCA College Nationals. Our coach called a team meeting to establish some goals. He asked “How many want to aim for top 10?” and some hands went up. “How many are good with top 5?” or “top 3?” or “number 1?” As the challenge got bigger to reach higher places and higher goals, fewer hands went up. And then came the lesson: WHY would this talented team practice for ANYTHING less than first place? See, when you are aiming for #1, you give everything you have- and then some. You don’t do that if “top 10” is good enough. THEN when the routine is over and you know you have truly dedicated all that you have and all that you are to the routine you put on the floor... THEN the actual placing you get is rewarding. It’s amazing how this works. 

When this lesson was taken to heart by the University of Texas that year, they gave their all. Hit an awesome routine and missed the last pyramid on the last beat of music. And got... second. Yet when awards were announced, they celebrated and truly felt the exhilaration of first. Do you practice for first place every time? Do you ensure that when you look back, regardless of your final ranking, you’ll never have to worry if you did enough to be your best? 

When they are tired and beat down, champions know they don’t have to go to practice. They GET to go to practice. (Thank you.) 

We both have spent time working with athletes and coaches in the United Kingdom. Cheerleading there is still relatively new when you consider that it’s been around for well over 100 years in the USA. That said, it’s developing at an extremely fast rate. There are a lot of reasons behind this, but one of them is that in general, the athletes in this country (and many other non-American countries around the world) are very grateful for opportunity to practice. In America, there seems to be a gym on ever corner. There are spring floors and trampolines and knowledgeable coaching staffs. But in the non- American countries, the physical access to training facilities has been a long road to travel for many, many people. And even after rapid development in this area over the last decade, there are still a LOT of teams practicing on fold-up mats that velcro together in a cold, dark school gym somewhere. It was such a privilege to work with athletes who had this perspective- that practice was a privilege and not a right. They understood how to listen and process coaching instruction on an entirely different level than kids who have easy access to that instruction all the time. The next time you find yourself standing at practice with your arms crossed and a pout on your face as you question the coach or a decision they make... remember: there are teams around the world who would give ANYTHING to have what you have. Perspective is everything. Is yours right? 

Champions ask questions. They challenge the status quo. They are never settled. 

This is true, but let’s make the clarification. There is a difference between asking questions to build knowledge and asking questions to challenge authority. There’s a difference between challenging the status quo to improve a gym and it’s culture and challenging the status quo because you are trying to lead when you should be following. And there’s a difference between never settling and never being appreciative for the opportunities you have. 

Where is your focus in these areas? Are you asking questions because you need to know the answer to get better or are you asking questions because you need to hear your voice heard by your teammates, or you want attention, or you want to be in charge, or you want to be a part of the gossip? Are you challenging a system to make it better because you have the knowledge and authority to do that? Or are you making suggestions and taking action for positive change in a way that is appropriate- respectful and intended for the good of the entire program? Are you willing to accept mediocrity in your own work ethic but expect others to be on time and work hard to make up for your lack-of-dedication? Think about that now and think about that often... it all matters. A lot. 

Champions have no room for drama. 

This is not a reality show, so there is truly no need for drama. Drama creates disconnect, hurt-feelings, and uses WAY too much energy. The opposite of drama is teamwork. The kind of teamwork that means your gym is a family. And not just family of the athletes on a team. But everyone. All the athletes. All the coaching staff. The gym owner. All the parents. EVERYONE is a team. The championship cultures that last through the test of time happen because they are not tolerant of drama. Although human nature and a competitive environment can sometimes lean towards drama (especially in the pre-teen and teen years), being a champion really means you shut that tendency down on purpose. It is a learned skill. 

Talk about it, hold each other accountable, and make your gym and your personal life a Drama-Free Zone. That applies to everyone- athletes, staff, and parents. The old saying applies: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” And by the way, that means out loud with your mouth, silently with your body language or actions, and online with your social media.

Champions embrace competition. They cheer for themselves, instead of against the others. 

This lesson is a great transition from the previous one about no-drama. The cheer- world seems very large (it is), but as soon as something negative is said out loud, it is suddenly very small. The best way to stay out of the small-cheer-world is to have a real handle on what great sportsmanship looks like. It’s cheering for your own victories. It’s being able to be supportive of your competitors even as you may feel disappointed in your own performance or result. It’s keeping your chin up when you have a result less than what you hoped for. It is maintaining composure online and offline. It is winning with grace and dignity and losing with grace and dignity. 

We always say that within any gym, the voice of their sportsmanship comes from top down. So gym owners, that means you are the first point of contact and leadership for showing your parents, staff, and athletes what great sportsmanship looks like in words, actions, and online. And parents this is a great opportunity for you to show your children what respect and

sportsmanship looks like, as well. That said-- everyone has control over their own actions. Are you showing the sportsmanship that you would want shown to your teams?

Mindset is everything. 

We teach a lot about high-performance mindset for competitive athletes in our work because it is the central point for achievement and every success in life. Andrea’s situation is a perfect example. Her blindness is a result of an over-exposure to oxygen in the incubator as a premature baby. A human error. She has a life-long consequence for this one mistake. She can’t see to drive a car. She can’t recognize faces well. She has trouble navigating dark spaces or new environments. Every day is a challenge. And she has every right to be angry or sad or pout or discouraged by that. But science and our own experience tells us that if she opted for that response, the quality of life and its general outcome would have not been nearly as rewarding. The key to overcoming any challenge to reach long-term success is truly a purposeful shift of mindset. Victory happens when your desire for success is greater than your willingness to allow the obstacles to be your excuse.

What are your obstacles today and are you willing to quit letting them be your excuse? We dare you to see what happens when you just let go. Mindset drives it all.