Olivia Bartlett-Marques is a remarkable woman. He has not allowed any social norm to affect a passionate vision of his life. She started in the fitness industry at the age of seventeen and became CEO and partner of the burgeoning TEAM Fitness business at just 21 years old. At 24 she garnered the overall and novice awards at the Natural Physique Championships.
This type of sport requires enormous dedication and concentration. With a rigorous training regimen and an extremely clean nutrition plan, it’s enough to send anyone else for a good nap and listen to it.
But it’s more than discipline that gets you up at 4 am and doing 18 training sessions a week. The conscious mind only executes 2-4% of our behaviors, so it has to be something deeper in the subconscious that sustains an individual to such a degree for success.
Olivia says it all comes down to a few key things:
1. Have a deeply personal reason for undertaking your goal. For her it was a deep-rooted desire to stop not feeling comfortable with her own body to want to feel proud and amazed by her physique. For Olivia, this desire lasted for years and propelled her through many a dark and depressing morning run. Many did not understand why she was subjected to such a vigorous regimen; and that’s the point: success is for no one but you, and you don’t need to explain it to anyone. You just have to feel it as a ‘must’ for yourself.
2. Let yourself be pushed up by others who have preceded you. Olivia had never competed before and had only seen one other figure championship. But she believed that she could try it red hot. She read stories about other competitors and posted photos of herself on her desktop for inspiration. One of the women had undergone open heart surgery and was told that she would never be able to exercise again! She proved them wrong and she kept winning contest after contest. If this woman who had had a near-death experience could do it, she could do it.
3. Enjoy the process. Olivia had no ambition to win, just to do her best. And week after week of long training sessions, control of body fat, careful nutrition planning, she needed to find success in the process. And she did: every time she made the decision to go for a run or try harder, she was making the decision to be her best. Every day she was a reinforcement of her vision, of her commitment, of her promise to feel good and live a new version of herself. She felt stronger every day. Winning was just the icing on the cake.
Coach Challenge:
Whether or not you choose figure championships as your personal goal, see if you have sparked the passion and inner fire for your goals… If not, then see if you can follow Olivia’s lead.