What is a winner?
A winner is someone who perseveres through the challenge placed before them, even when the desired outcome for success looks bleak or unfavorable.
Simple.
There will always be obstacles that we will have to face, but it’s how we see ourselves within the challenge of facing those obstacles that determine if we are to be losers or winners. The outcome is always up to us.
Most people think winning is something that happens to “lucky” people. Winning is an attitude and outlook on life. Winning is habitual.
One of the key characteristics of cultivating a winning attitude is identifying the passion within yourself for why you’re seeking success.
I noticed a pattern, and attribute shared by the winners of the world early on in my life: most people who win focus on one primary target, one idea, and one craft, and master it to the point that their “hit rate” for success in that thing reaches high levels. The trick is they win so much, while doing “that thing”, that the observer is awestruck by the result, so much, that winning in one small area of existence, can appear to be winning at everything.
Take Tiger Woods for instance. Tiger Woods is the world’s best golfer, winning on the biggest and brightest stages, collecting trophy after trophy, and raking in billions of dollars. All because of his winning attitude toward the game of golf. However, in Tiger’s personal life, he has also made headlines for losing in areas, like marital life, that most “normal” people also lose in.
Or how about Elon Musk? The world’s “richest man” appears to be winning at everything he is involved with from a corporate perspective. Some might even say he has the “Midas Touch”, but after careful observation, you’d be quick to note that many of his employees are disgruntled, and company appearances aren’t everything they are cracked up to be.
Winning massively in one area of life can often blur or erase the losses in another. It all depends on what you focus on most, which brings me to another point. To a winner, “losses” are not looked at as such, but instead received as lessons. Every lesson that a winner learns, no matter how rough the lesson, is applied to the winner’s arsenal of experience and deposited into the winner’s knowledge bank for later withdrawal in a real-world application.
How you see yourself within your situation will determine how you see yourself out of your situation. When you decide in your mind that you will not let the idea of failure dictate how your outcome will manifest, you will have taken control of your destiny, even if by just a smidgen.
You have to learn how to take life’s proverbial horse by the reins. Figure out your destination and guide your ship to the dock. There will be strong winds and tumultuous waves along the way. There will be miscalculations and a sense of unknowing, but the inner faith that guides you toward the right direction will always be with you. That intuitive calling reassures you in the moment of doubt that “you got this” will be ringing loudly in your mind.
There’s no feeling quite like being entrenched in the middle of a challenge and seeing yourself come out on the other side of it, wondering if you’ll be celebrating your determination and tenacity, or if you’ll be crying tears of sadness that you didn’t give it your all, having to wait until another opportunity, if any, comes along again, primed for you to show what you’re made of.
Many people are accustomed to losing, which is a habit they learned from childhood, in the same way, a winner learns the art of winning early on as a child.
Some folk were winners early on in life but experienced a loss. Instead of seeing that loss as a lesson, they let the experience fester and eat away at their confidence, to the point that they could no longer see themselves winning. This is what happens to many of us today.
How many attempted practice shots in Basketball does Steph Curry have to make, or how many touchdowns in the practice facility does Tom Brady have to throw, to feel comfortable with delivering a high-level performance on game night? However much it takes to hone in on those blessed gifts and abilities, making the most out of them to get the “W”.
No matter if you’re used to losing or if you’re used to winning, it’s up to you to heed the call and push through to your victory.
Focus on the victory, and getting that “W”, don’t focus on the loss unless you’ve mastered the conversion process of inner alchemy and have embraced it as a lesson.
You have to learn to make the distinction that feeling like a loser, and losing, are two different things. Feeling like a loser has to do with a lack of self-confidence while losing has to deal with circumstances within a certain condition.
The same holds that feeling like a winner is not the same as winning. Believe it or not, many winners felt and knew deep down in their Souls, that they were winners, long before they had ever officially won anything.
I guess you can say they won “winning attitudes”.
– True Ju
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