The greats of every sport have a unique quirk that helps them stand apart from their competitors. That quirk is being self-critical and constantly pushing yourself to higher standards because that is what you hold yourself to. There hasn’t been a self-critical player like Michael Jordan in the NBA.
MJ was achieving greatness at the highest level of the sport and was undoubtedly the best player in the league during his time in the NBA. Throughout the ’90s, Jordan was unstoppable on the court, even though he would make mistakes that anyone would on the basketball court. MJ would also miss shots and lose games often, as every NBA player does.
Jordan is different from everyone else because he knows he can’t be perfect on the court. He once said that the reason he was successful in the things he wanted to do was that he had failed a lot in his life and had learned from every single failure.
I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games.
26 times I have been trusted to take the game's winning shot and missed.
I have failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.
—Michael Jordan pic.twitter.com/TJOpFjtyyF
— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) October 14, 2022
This kind of spirit from MJ is not only admirable but also inspiring. If everyone could take a more calculated and meticulous approach to what they do, success will be bound to follow.
How Mentality Made Michael Jordan The GOAT
Michael Jordan was one of the most competitive athletes to have ever played a professional sport. The stories of MJ’s competitive nature are legendary and ‘The Last Dance’ provides a fantastic insight into what drove Jordan to try and compete with the people around him every single day.
The desire to compete at all times helped MJ find that extra motivation whenever he needed it to go and dominate his opposition. It’s no accident that Jordan went 8 years with just one playoff series loss, winning 6 championships and 6 Finals MVPs in the process. Jordan used competition to get him into the right mental state to go out onto an NBA court and focus solely on winning the game.
From practice to games, MJ lived for competition and usually managed to dominate any and everyone who stood in his path. As a result, we now look at him as not only the greatest basketball player of all time, but one of the greatest athletes and businessmen as well.
