What Can We Learn About Naomi Osaka’s Outstanding Mindset
A focus-on-one-point mindset is critical, as much as a focus-on-one-paragraph is.
Portuguese referee Carlos Ramos blows a foul for violation of Serena Williams coach. Then the chain of events resulted in a total emotional loss of Queen Serena before the referee.
However, and surprisingly, Naomi Osaka seemed utterly absent from that “circus.” Williams has emotionally lost, and Osaka looking like the master Yoda in a training session with Luke Skywalker.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Serena Williams. She’s a tennis muse. But I think she was feeling Osaka’s mindful power before she starts insulting the referee.
I’ve seen thousands of hours of all kinds of sports, but I’ll never forget the mental toughness the young Japanese tennis player had in that final. At only 20 years old, Naomi continued, undaunted and calm, to play a game that proved relentless. Regardless of the emotional festival that Serena was presenting in that mythical final, Osaka defeated her idol. And that was outstanding.
“Every match that I’ve played I’ve thought, ‘just don’t give up no matter what’ because everyone I played was super tough. I feel like that’s really helped me and my mentality of coming to the finals and eventually winning.”- Naomi Osaka.
So, what lessons can we provide on mental toughness? How can we transport it to our writing routines?
Naomi’s mantra is “Keep working hard.”
There’s no plan b for success. You have to keep working hard. Especially when you’re the number one in the world. Every fan is expecting you to win. And when that doesn’t happen, you feel the pressure in your bones. You start thinking that you’re not as good as you think you are, and some self-doubt starts to take over you.
That’s the moment where mental toughness comes in.
Mental toughness is a measure of individual resilience and confidence that may predict success in sport, education, and the workplace.- Wikipedia
It’s not easy to have mental toughness, but it doesn’t fall from the sky either. This state of mind has to be practice every day. And the best way for you to practice mental toughness is by putting yourself in front of new challenges.
Competing against a better player or starting a new article, you have to practice. Only by feeling the pressure will your brain activate specific inputs. Those inputs will trigger your willingness and resilience. Only then you’ll find the mental toughness to overcome the uncertainties.
We usually think that talent and intelligence play a significant role in success. But research studies found that intelligence only accounts for 30% of your achievements.
In fact, when you start looking into it, your talent and your intelligence don’t play nearly as big of a role as you might think. The research studies that I have found say that intelligence only accounts for 30% of your achievement — and that’s at the extreme upper end.
Research is starting to reveal that your mental toughness — or “grit” as they call it — plays a more important role than anything else for achieving your goals in health, business, and life. That’s good news because you can’t do much about the genes you were born with, but you can do a lot to develop mental toughness. James Clear in jamesclear.com
Angela Duckworth, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, studied how mental toughness, perseverance, and passion impacted West Point cadets that joined a class at the United States Military Academy.
We imagine the most capable and courageous cadets reaching the final exams are the more robust, bigger, and more intelligent ones. But that’s far to be true.
It wasn’t the usual characteristics we assume that made cadets finish Beast Barracks campus. Instead, it was grit. What made the difference was the perseverance and passion for achieving long-term goals. Those goals made cadets overcome all the incredible adversities proposed on this campus.
When should we use mental toughness?
If you start reading or hearing stories about the top writers on Medium, you’ll find a pattern. Top writers are not the most intelligent ones. I often write articles of some impressively smart people on Medium, but they are not top writers at all.
So, what makes top writers the best on the platform?
Top writers use perseverance and passion in their daily writing routines.
Last month I started attending a mini-course on how to succeed on Medium. This online course was orchestrated by four brilliant minds: Sinem Günel, Michael Thompson, Zulie Rane, and Amardeep Parmar. And they all have grit in their veins.
In one of their last lessons, they were sharing what their most successful articles were and why.
All four of them had different perspectives about it. Some said it was the rugged structure of the headlines. Other ones highlighted the importance of an appealing introduction.
Yet, everyone pointed up one and only one detail that is common to all, without exception.
You have to write every day.
You can’t write every day if you don’t have the grit. Without perseverance and passion for writing, you’ll never get there.
From all sorts of backgrounds, four different top writers said the same thing.
Our hypothesis that grit is essential to high achievement evolved during interviews with professionals in investment banking, painting, journalism, academia, medicine, and law. Asked what quality distinguishes star performers in their respective fields, these individuals cited grit or a close synonym as often as talent. In fact, many were awed by the achievements of peers who did not at first seem as gifted as others, but whose sustained commitment to their ambitions was exceptional. Likewise, many noted with surprise that prodigiously gifted peers did not end up in the upper echelons of their field. — Angela Duckworth
Why are some people mentally tough and others not?
In a simple way of saying it, grit, perseverance, and mental toughness equal consistency.
Mentally tough writers don’t make excuses not to finish their daily articles.
Mentally tough painters don’t distract themselves from the last piece of art they’re painting.
Mentally tough leaders do not allow their opponents to trample them with false insinuations or political creeps.
Mentally tough athletes don’t miss the last shot when the team believes they will deliver.
There is good news about grit, persistence, and mental toughness. Even if you haven’t grown up with the perfect genes or with immense talent, you can develop these skills.
Grit is about habits, not motivation. Mental toughness is improved by micro-exercises. Perseverance is the good part of stubbornness.
Weak minds lead to weak actions. A strong disciplined mind, which anyone can cultivate through daily practice, can achieve miracles. If you want to live life to the fullest, care for your thoughts as you would your most prized possessions. Work hard to remove all inner turbulence. The rewards will be abundant.- Robin Sharma
Final Thought
Do you remember your high school classmates? Some of them were extremely intelligent. You looked at them and really appreciate their capability of getting an A+ all the time. Some of them had an unbelievable talent for sports, drawing, or even woodworking.
How many of them are in top positions in their jobs?
I found myself approaching some of my high school friends. Those nerds who got the best grades and always went to math or language competitions. But when I start talking to them, I realized that fear, shyness, or some kind of trauma, blocked them.
Some of those nerd work in the supermarket checkout. Others went to professions where they do not have to face significant responsibilities.
After all, what failed in them? At 10 years old, they were brilliant. But now, they seem ordinary people.
The truth is talent was overrated.
It’s your amount of grit, mental toughness, and perseverance that predicts your level of success, not talent.
We are surrounded by cases that prove the mind’s power is above all physical and innate abilities that we can inherit.
Yet, we continuously procrastinate the day we face the truth. We procrastinate because we recognize the pain that hard work causes. We procrastinate because we know that we will give up many comforts to achieve what we aspire to.
Whatever excuses you want to bring to the table, as our dear Naomi Osaka says:
“Keep working hard.”
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