Warrior - A man engaged or experienced in warfare; broadly: a person engaged in some struggle or conflict.

This is Merriam Webster's definition of the word Warrior. I'd change "man" to "person", but other than that I like these definitions. The type of warrior referred to in this article will be the broad definition, "a person engaged in some struggle or conflict."

Warrior is a word that I don't throw around loosely because I don't want to devalue such a powerful word. Most of us either have or have had struggles in our lives. At some point or another unless you're an extremely rare exception, you've probably been engaged in some type of conflict in your life. There's almost no escaping this reality unless your circumstances are extremely lucky. This much is fact. How we react to these struggles in turn determines how we progress from that point on in our lives.

It's tough to generalize how we react to these struggles, or conflicts in our lives. We're all so individual, so unique. As much as I'd love to, I can't sit here and pretend everyone in the world handles themselves well when faced with these types of situations. I've been exposed to a lot in my time here so far. I've worked as hard as possible to stay sharp and analyze not only myself but as many other humans as possible. I've also spent a lot of time and effort helping people. It's a journey that goes back far for me.

For a long time I always considered self development as a career path for me. I never had any super concrete plans, or any ideas that came perfectly to fruition. I did immerse myself though for a long time in this area. Being able to see people, problems, situations for what they are, as accurately as possible...This is a skill that's developed over time through conscious effort. There's phases you go through, where you think you know how something works and maybe that will be your viewpoint for a long time. After a while though, if you're still engaged in the uncomfortable learning process, your views will probably evolve, and you'll have to toss a lot of what you learned out the window in favor of a more accurate and modernized lens through which to view these same situations in.

It may seem like I'm rambling, but I try and take more time to explain things in the hopes that over time you may come back to these articles and have more information to learn from. Attention spans are short nowadays, I get it. I'm the same way. But it's worth it to me to sacrifice some views or reads as a trade off for giving more to the people that feel like they can benefit from anything that I have to say.

I started off blindly passionate, and very naive about the way things work in this world. In the literal broad definition of the word, I suppose the vast majority of people are warriors. The problem with accepting that is that it gives false optimism, false encouragement. The word "warrior" emanates a certain strong feeling. That's a feeling that will blind you and lull you to sleep so fast it will make your head spin, and by the time you stop spinning your life will be over. Through all the spinning you'll be left with a blurred life experience. You'll never have had a chance to even SEE what was really possible, let alone make your way in a focused, straight path to obtain it.

Mind of the Warrior

Welcome to the Mind of the Warrior. You'd probably be feeling a lot better right now if I were speaking about the Heart of the Warrior, but that's the job of my partner, Amber. My job is to break down seven attributes found in the Mind of the Warrior, and notice how I say "the" warrior and not "a" warrior. I've no interest diving into the mind of any common "warrior", nor would I have the patience to actually dissect this blubber.

These struggles, these conflicts found in the definition we went over...If you want take these challenges and milk them for everything they're worth...If you want to get better and better, sharper and sharper with every GIFT of a struggle life throws at you, then this article was written for you.

It's not easy, and I don't claim to know it all. I do however know that I am firmly on my path, and you can determine for yourself as you either watch me walk my path or even better, adopt these attributes for yourself whether or not the information ahead is effective. The only way to truly learn is to test, experiment, refine and practice. No amount of reading is going to give you the ability to wield powerful and applicable information. By that same token I'd never bestow upon you any information I myself haven't field tested or don't understand fully.

Let us begin.

Knowledge

"If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you."

Knowledge is so important. The amount of knowledge you have on a given topic directly correlates with your chances of succeeding in it. There's a lot to be said for never giving up, and remaining committed to the end. These are essentially useless though if you don't know what you're doing. At worst you'll spend your whole life trying to achieve something, or hit a goal and never getting there. At best, with no knowledge you'll have wasted an immense amount of time, which is the most valuable resource we have in this world.

Learn. If you want to get somewhere, learn how to get there, step by step. Learn where to go, what routes to talk, how to travel there in the most efficient and fastest way possible. You can only go so far on practice alone. Eventually you're going to hit a wall and that wall will most likely be lack of knowledge.

I personally have an interesting relationship with knowledge, mainly because it was my weak point for so long in my life. I barely attended school in my later years, and in my earlier years I hardly ever paid attention. I went to a very good school though, and this instilled in me a deep belief that I couldn't learn like other people. Even now I sometimes have the urge to skip this attribute, or put it off because it's boring.

When I think about my gaming career in particular, I hardly ever spent any time studying or researching things. In a field like e-sports where the entire foundation of any game you choose literally revolves around understanding how it works...well, you can see how this may have held me back.

Now I did end up compensating to an extent, through sheer play time and repeatedly running my head into the wall. The wall never broke though. In fact, I just ended up hitting my head so many times I eventually came to find ways around the wall- Ways that I would have discovered with much greater ease and ten times less the amount of time if I'd actually stopped and tried to figure out how things worked.

E-sports is a strong example of needing knowledge to succeed and excel, but this attribute is the building block of everything we've accomplished as a species. Intelligence, and then knowledge. Our intelligence allows us to harness knowledge to become far greater than we ever could have been otherwise. Don't be like young me. Save yourself the time. Determine out what you need to know, figure out where to find it, and learn it. For such a potentially infinitely complex attribute, it's ironically actually that simple.

Focus

"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things we have done."

I'll start this attribute off by pointing out something that I hope sinks itself into you as deeply as possible. Never forget this. Out of any possible time period for us to be born in up until now...This is by far, hands down the most difficult time to live in and maintain your focus, both in the short term and the long term.

For one, the technology that we have available at our fingertips and in front of us at ALL TIMES has evolved so fast, our brains have not had a chance to catch up. The level of stimulation in our everyday lives is ridiculous, making it harder than ever to be present and focused. Technology has evolved exponentially over the last 20 years or so, and our brains are designed to evolve over hundreds, thousands, millions of years. That's not to say we might find our brains evolving much faster in the next few generations to come. I wouldn't be surprised honestly. But right now this remains a fact.

Second, humans have never been more ruthlessly efficient and effective at grabbing your attention. Especially if you live in America, where our entire way of living is based off of providing value in one form or another to the largest group of humans you can attract...You may not even realize how much more focus you could have because you haven't known anything different, ever.

Those two points out of the way, the most important thing to remember regarding this attribute is that you are a product of your own thoughts and mind, not someone else's. No one can take your free will away from you, your ability to make decisions. It's easy to want to be entertained by anything and everything. It's easy to not want to work hard, and to choose to be stimulated instead. It's easy to want to let something or someone else make you feel good with their product, or their TV show or their quick fixes to any of your problems.

But you must focus. You must train yourself to derive more pleasure, joy, satisfaction and overall VALUE out of creating. When I say creating, I mean creating a better version of yourself. Creating your life experience, not letting it be determined for you. Creating what you want to put out into the world. It could be music, it could be a healthier version of yourself, it could be the highest level of ping-pong that no one has reached yet.

Whatever your struggle is, you must focus and find love in it. You'll find once you begin focusing, a lot of the negative qualities that inherently come with the word "struggle" seem to fade away. This is called being engaged, and the book "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explores the ins and outs of this concept.

In the long term you must commit to focusing yourself indefinitely, eternally with no end in sight. In the moment though, your reward is entering a flow state. This is the most enjoyable experience we can have as humans. There's no substitute for it, although many will inevitably try. I've gotten caught up in life as they say, and tried to find different ways to accomplish whatever it was I needed at the time. Everything besides focusing, entering a flow state and committing to enjoying the process has failed.

I've worked hard very recently to making focus my main priority in life. Everything stems from focus and anything is possible with it on your side. Focus compounds, and you can continue to build your focus over the months, over the years. It's more than an attribute. It's a skill and a practice in itself. Read about. Dedicate yourself to it. Reap the rewards that others will never see. Focus.

Consistency

Despite how much I hated it with every ounce of my being, I actually learned a lot from working in food service. I worked at Panera Bread and Tim Horton's both for years. When I think of consistency, such a simple example comes to mind. When you go out to eat somewhere and it's not your first time eating there, everything comes down to consistency.

You go out to eat because you're wanting something that you've ordered before. You've got a good feeling on the way there because you're anticipating the food, the satisfaction. Your senses can taste and smell it, they can feel the texture while you're thinking about it. You get there, order it and it's not the same. There's less meat on it. The condiments and vegetables are unevenly distributed. The bread is smaller than last time. There was a little more or a little less salt and pepper.

This completely changes the experience. The reason McDonald's is so dominant is because the systems they have in place are designed for ultimate consistency. People know what exactly what to expect when they go to McDonald's and they get it because their processes are designed so that any sixteen year old first day worker can look at the build, grab what they need in the same order every time, and throw it together.

Consistency may not be the #1 most important attribute on this list if we're gonna rank them. But it is CERTAINLY the most underrated. Another e-sports example is the game that I play, Smash Bros Melee. The community surrounding this game in a way is defined by extremely high levels of skill. The game has been out for so long and has so much depth, so many players these days have reached an incredibly high level of skill. What we call "Hidden Bosses" are everywhere. You'll run into players that you've never heard of that are just amazing and will blow you away.

You know where I'm going with this. Most of them lack consistency. Most of them for one reason or another cannot stay consistent enough in tournament to get the placings that accurately reflect how much skill they have.

Consistency is underrated because it comes after you've reached a certain level with the other attributes. You can make progress and strides in whatever it is you're doing, or trying to overcome without consistency, but you'll never be pro.

Consistency is what separates the professionals from the amateurs, and that's the simplest way to put it. The key to consistency is to work and constantly strategize day in and day out to figure out how to practice or learn in a way that maximizes your results, and THEN practice that consistently. You need to replicate the hardest most difficult conditions that force you to be the best that you can be, and then consistently practice in those conditions.

It's not enough to stay comfortable in taking the easy way out when you're practicing. It's not enough to rely on what got you to this point. It's not enough to be consistent with the norm. You must do what it takes to bring the best out of yourself, and then apply consistency to that. If you can apply consistency in the most skillful and effective manner, you'll eventually cross the invisible line that makes the rest of the world subconsciously view you as a pro. It's a feeling you give people through your skill that they can only feel if consistency has been applied properly.

Strategy

Strategy is the most difficult attribute to break down, especially in an article like this. Strategy's just a broad term that encompasses so many other subcategories/attributes. It's a very explored and refined area of humanity that you could argue our history and future revolve around.

Strategy is planning in the most effective way possible to execute what's necessary to achieve the goal that you're aiming for. If you're a football team, every single play is an extremely refined and practice example of strategy. On the other end of the spectrum let's suppose someone is an addict engaged in a battle with substance abuse and addiction. There's a lot to it and I'll have to oversimplify a bit, but rehab is so effective not only because they get the addict out of their old environment and into a new one, but because they provide them with long term strategies that they can apply to avoid falling back into the same patterns and lifestyle.

Strategy can be infallible, a guaranteed way to overcome your struggle or come out on top in your conflict. It's based on logic and therefore in many situations cannot be denied. If there's no opposing force in the conflict, the perfect strategy a lot of times can guarantee you success. If there are other humans strategizing against you, then it comes down to whose strategy is most effective taking all factors into consideration.

You must be ruthless with your strategies. Leave no stone unturned in figuring out every possible option you have, every option you don't have, and exploring each one in and out.

Skill

I saved skill for last for a very simple reason: It trumps everything else. Skill is the odd man out in this list in the sense that it breaks the rules every other attribute has to play by. It's the only rule that can stand alone and potentially lead you to success over any opponent or any struggle. Theoretically speaking, if you have none of the other attributes but your skill is high enough, you will overcome. If you're competing against an opponent who has all six of the other attributes at a far higher level than you, but for whatever reason you happen to be more skilled...You're going to win.

This is due to results. Results cannot be denied. Every attribute I've listed is critical in giving yourself the highest possible chances of getting the result you want. It could be overcoming addiction, it could be overcoming your fear of public speaking, it could be playing tennis vs. a rival or cross country running- It doesn't matter. He who is more skilled is more capable, and therefore will win. He who is more skilled will overcome.

This is a rule that must be abided by. Results don't care about how you achieve them, in fact they don't care about anything. They just are. Now that being said, it would be very foolish to try and bypass any of the other attributes. Skill does indeed have the potential to stand alone and get the job done, but it's not invincible. Not even close, and in many cases one can't even access however much skill they might have if they've neglected any of the other attributes.

Yes, if someone happens to be naturally amazing at public speaking, with no fear and unlimited amounts of charisma and articulation, it is possible for them to move a crowd more powerfully than someone who has been doing it their whole life.

This however would be the exception, not the rule. In the overwhelming majority of the time you're not going to ever be that skilled unless you have the knowledge, you've remained consistently disciplined and focused to the craft, you've had the fortitude to fail and continue, and you've strategized to achieve the optimal results.