All of us know the story of how Yuvraj Singh battled cancer and emerged to become the player of the tournament at World Cup 2011 that India won. What a lot of you may not know is that heading into the tournament he was not in great form. In fact, he had not hit a century in 2 years counting back to the West Indies’ tour of India in 2009.
Before the tournament, the Master Blaster Sachin took him aside and told him to relax and to play the tournament for someone he loved or respected, someone who was special and played a huge role in his life. Right then and there Yuvi told Sachin that he would play this WC for him, the player he grew up watching and his inspiration for becoming a cricketer.
Yuvi got hold of a picture of Sachin on-driving the ball from the one-day tournament in Nairobi in 2000 where Yuvi had made his debut and pasted it on his kit. Next to it, he put a picture of himself playing a similar shot. Everytime he opened his kit, he would be reminded who he was playing this tournament for. The rest is history. Yuvi picked up 15 wickets and hit 362 runs at an average of 90.5 with one century.
Don’t underestimate the power of constant motivation in your or your teams’ journey. Even those who are extremely skilled often need to be motivated and get visual cues for our motivations from time to time in our journey.
