When did Tiger Woods become great?
When, specifically?
Was it when he won his 3rd straight US Amateur Title in 1996?
How about when he became the youngest-ever winner of The Masters at 21?
Or maybe it was winning the “Tiger Slam” and holding all 4 Major Championships at the same time?
I’m going to ration a guess that if you asked him he would say at the age of 9.
He believed he was great before anyone else might have thought he was. Because he was putting in the work to know he was on the right path.
Some accolades give us the external validation we’re “great” but we must believe we’re great well before those come along.
That’s what the great ones do. They have an inner belief that they CAN do it and that they WILL do it.
Those struggling to start don’t have that belief. It hasn’t been created, yet.
So, we can believe we’ll never be great and never start or we can set out on the journey to become great while learning along the way.
It doesn’t mean we’ll win trophies
We certainly won’t have crowds gathering
The red carpet will not be rolled out.
But when we become consistent in practice we start to believe we are great.
We build the inner confidence to keep going.
We don’t have to have others tell us we are great.
We are becoming great every single day.
We know because we’ve put in the work.
That’s what the great ones do.
That’s what we should do as well.