Michael Phelps: How Bad Do You Want It?

How bad do you want it?

I thought about this following Michael Phelps's 100 Fly swim that Friday night in August, 2008. When I was a swimmer in High School my coach had a saying painted on the south wall of the pool. In big, red, bold letters it read, "How bad do you want it?"

What is "IT?"

Anything you want in life!

I started off the worst swimmer in the pool. I was in the slow lane and ate waves on the edge of the pool. We started swim practice at 5 am before school, swam again after school for many hours. I looked at that saying twenty times a day and it reminded me of my goals. I wanted to be in the "A" lane with the best swimmers. I was not the best swimmer, it was hard for me.

That was until I met an Olympian. Olympic swimmer George DiCarlo came to our pool and gave a swim clinic. That day I studied his techniques and took the personal advice he gave me and used it and applied it. In my Junior year I qualified for three events in the State Championships. I did well and the relay I was on broke a school record in the final. In my Senior year I swam in the "A" group and swam in the State Championships again.

I achieved my goals in swimming. Michael Phelps achieved his goals and broke Spitz's record with an unprecedented 8 gold medals. 7 of them coming as world records. The most amazing thing to me was the way he won the seventh gold.

As I watched the swim I could smell the chlorine and feel the humidity. I could hear my coach saying in my head, as Michael swam in the television:

• "Never give up!"
• "Swim all the way into the wall!"
• "If you are a half a stroke to the wall--take a half a stroke--don't coast!"
• "The difference between a winner and a wiener is this much!" (and he would hold out his fingers showing us millimeters.)

All this came true in Michael's swim to clinch his seventh gold.

What does all of this have to do with our lives?

EVERYTHING!!!!

Michael Phelps reaching his ultimate goal is all about life. It is all about what you are doing now. You need to never give up and finish just as hard as you started. It is all about wanting your goals with a passion so great that you don't know how to explain it to others. It is all about learning every technique there is to know to achieve that great goal. It is about implementing the things in your life that will take you there. It is all about becoming the best at what you do. Swimming taught me that in life. Michael Phelps just re-energized that in my life.

When Michael Phelps was talking with Mark Spitz in the NBC interview after his seventh win he said, "Whatever you put your mind to you can accomplish!"

I believe this with all my heart. If he can do something that great, what can I accomplish? "How bad do I want it?" You can do it too, "How bad do you want it?" How bad do you want to do what you want to do or be the best at whatever it is you want to be? What great big goals do you have in life that you want to accomplish?

I know mine--I want them sooo bad!

CHAMPIONS DEFINE THEMSELVES BY THEIR ACTIONS!