Dorian Yates always had a champion’s mindset. It started before he was a bodybuilding champion. The six-time Mr. Olympia focused as much on his positive mental state as he did on his carefully planned workouts, knowing that the former would fuel the latter and ultimately build the physique and competitive success that he desired. Yates recently wrote about this mindset. It’s great advice that you can apply to whatever you strive to achieve. What follows is what champion Dorian Yates had to say about his winning philosophy.
DORIAN YATES: THE CHAMPION MINDSET
I used to sit on the bus every day and visualize my training, even visualizing myself winning trophies and becoming a champion.
Affirmations, thoughts, visualizations, and positive self-talking: It all helps significantly to create the future you want. Each detail of winning a contest, how I’d feel, what I’d do, the reactions…everything. It was all pictured clearly in my mind for the reality I wanted to create for myself.
To be a champion you have to believe in yourself when nobody else does.
Throughout my entire life I always had that self-belief, that belief that I could change my life through bodybuilding and something good was going to come my way if I put in the work and effort.
I could feel that I was going in the right direction.
Naturally, of course, I did question myself if I could really win the Olympia and be crowned as the best, the number one in the world at my sport.
Since someone has to win and be the best…why not me?
