Personal Thought On: Developing a Winning Mindset

A winning mindset is something I have developed and worked really hard on for all of my 20s, and this has reaped huge benefits now in my 30s. As someone who used to play sports, I was always extremely competitive, sometimes unhealthily so. I’ve learned to channel the competitive drive into not making comparisons with anyone else, but always with yesterday’s version of myself. I don’t like to lose and I definitely don’t like quitting. I don’t know where the drive comes from originally, but possibly from childhood and the isolated environment that I grew up in, which is talked about more extensively in my other post: On Finding a Passion. I didn’t always have a healthy winning mindset, and I used to quit easily whenever things got tough and was often paralyzed by fear of failing. This happened in school, social settings, as well as when facing life’s challenges and unexpected setbacks. It was often hard to pull myself back to a nominal state after disappointments, or insecurities, or when other people let me down. I would stew on things and let the negativity get to me, often days, months, or in certain situations years after the fact. My mind was hijacked by people from the past that weren’t in my life anymore and I let the memories stay present, even though it was not good to dwell and stew on things. I worked really, really hard to develop emotional and mental toughness and resilience, and I’ve learned a lot. Now I can quickly catch negative emotions, neutralize them, and then get right back into the mode I need to be in order to keep going. I wanted to write this mostly for myself, but maybe others would find it interesting too.

A winning mindset starts with visualizing who you want to be and finding your why: The truth of the matter is, we become what we think the most about. A person starts winning in life when they imagine themselves as a winner in whatever they do. The power of the mind is absolutely unreal and everything comes down to having the right mindset. From my experiences, I do believe there is a Law of Attraction where if one thinks about something strong and long enough, then that gives them a high chance to eventually succeed at that thing. So many of us focus on the question: “Are you what you want to be?”, but how many of us focus on the more important question: “Are you who you want to be?”. There’s a big difference. The difference is who you want to be transcends all labels and is the core of who someone is. A person is best at being who they are, no? So to me, winning starts from inner work and looking internally and flushing out an identity that cannot be replicated. It comes down to answering fundamental questions such as the following, which I borrowed from a true winner, the late Kobe Bryant: “Who are you? Where are you today? What is your story?” Moreover as said best by Simon Sinek in his book Start with Why and I’m paraphrasing: People don’t care about what you do, but people care a lot about why you do what you do.

A winning mindset at the core is having a “refuse to lose” attitude and fighting hard in everything: People with a drive to win don’t quit unless they are literally forced to quit by factors outside of their control. A “refuse to lose” attitude is telling yourself in no uncertain terms: “I will not be denied.” Every setback and every challenge is reframed as an opportunity to get better and prove to yourself how strong you really are. Everything negative is turned into something positive. I think this type of mindset gives someone an incredible sense of both drive and balance. The inner belief in yourself as well as the balance to know you will learn something, regardless of what happens, is powerful. To fight hard means waking up everyday with the intention of competing in the game of life. When we wake up in the morning, sometimes we have full energy, sometimes we have limited energy, and sometimes we have no energy at all due to, for example, sickness or a late night. Everyday it’s important to put one foot in front of the other, one step at a time, and keep going no matter what; make a list of what you need to do and then execute ruthlessly, regardless of how you feel. Even on the worst sick days, one can do something productive and useful, though it might be small. Never just lay in bed and wallow in misery; we have to be creative, think of different solutions, and if we put those thoughts into action, it’s all going to work out.

A winning mindset shows good sportsmanship, kindness, and mercy when you do win big, not becoming boastful: Sometimes when we work really, really hard and fight extremely hard for something, we end up actually getting the thing that we wanted. And when we do, it may come at the expense of someone else in a competitive setting. For example, think of a job situation where you end up getting a job offer after preparing for a really long time and preparing very hard. You getting the job offer at the same time means that someone else did not get the job. In most situations, it’s easy to become proud and feel as if you deserved the success and that it was the result of your own efforts. Yes it’s true a person’s own efforts did contribute to the success, but that’s only half the equation! The other half of the equation is that a lot of outside factors had to align in order for your success to happen that were beyond your control. Never get arrogant and let pride take over. Always show good sportsmanship, kindness, and mercy to the people that did not win because of your success. Who knows next time the situation may be different, right? A person that has success is not always guaranteed to have continued success in the future. True winners are humble people at the core and know that they are willing to accept whatever the outcome is: win, lose, or draw and keep it moving. They don’t rest on their laurels and always keep going and keep pushing in order to further their skills, because they love development and growth that much.

A winning mindset never focuses on success, rather the focus is always on how to bounce back from failure: A winner knows that in life, he or she is going to have both wins and losses. Everyone can be happy when things are easy, comfortable, and successful, but how does someone react when the going gets tough and we experience major setbacks? The reaction to failure and loss is what defines someone that wins and dictates life vs. someone that’s just average and reacts to life. The winner accepts the failure, assesses it for the lessons learned, and then tries again even harder and sharper. They know that the trick to bouncing back from anything is having a short memory. A totally unexpected situation happened? Great: Let’s learn from it, remember the lessons learned, and then keep going with more insights than before, and totally forget the unexpected setback even happened. It’s time to move on! It’s the glass-half full mindset that’s so powerful and strong. Mental fortitude is really about knowing that if this opportunity or situation does not work out, there’s another one just around the corner if one keeps pressing. Never get negative and bitter, even though it’s so easy to do so in the moment. Rather always smile and just keep going, because life is too short to get angry or frustrated! :)

A winning mindset is about carrying yourself and living with honor and dignity: This is something that has come more recently to me in the past few years - living with honor and dignity. This is a way of living that I never intentionally thought too much about when I was younger, but it’s so important to me now. Honoring others as well as yourself means treating others and yourself with respect. Having dignity means not letting your principles and values be corrupted by negative outside forces, whatever those forces may be. I’ve learned from reading about Ancient Rome that their citizens were often taught the four most important virtues were: Justice, Temperance, Wisdom, and Courage. As said best by the orator and statesman Cicero, a person living with these values becomes someone who has a Greatness of Soul. These traits are still so prescient today and a winner embodies all of them. A winner is someone who knows what’s right from what’s wrong and will always act with integrity, even if it costs them everything. They’d rather be destroyed than to compromise their integrity and what they believe in. I think that it’s so rare now to find good people in society because we all compromise our values too easily when the going gets tough. Don’t ever be afraid to stand on the side of the truth and what’s right, even though it may destroy you or cost you dearly. If not you, then who will make things better for others? This is truly winning in my opinion: not compromising who you are when it’s so easy to do so because of enticing incentives or peer pressure.

A winning mindset gives someone more opportunities in life: It’s true, people with winning mindsets draw others in because their positivity and optimism is infectious. Everything ultimately comes down to mindset and our mindset dictates who we are, who we associate with, and who we ultimately become. We all know that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. As a winner, people will want to be around you, give you opportunities, and think highly of you because let’s face it: everyone likes to be associated with positive people who win. We mirror the people that we admire, especially people who can do things that we can’t or people who have a DNA that we want to have. Opportunities often come to us based on the people we know, no? So it’s important to put out the right energy into the world in order to attract the people that you want to attract. Like-minded people attract other like-minded people, and so I always encourage everyone to win by becoming the person they’ve always wanted to be. Because anything is possible with enough effort, time, and dedication. Take action and don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Critics are actually a source of good fuel and motivation to take you to the next level. Because the truth is: success is the best revenge. And when you do achieve grand success, it will only make the journey that much sweeter. And the haters? You can thank them for the motivation because they are part of your journey too and you needed their fuel.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on winning and I hope you enjoyed it!