It’s All In The Mind – Mindset is Number One!
We think of winners as people who never fail, people who excel at whatever they are doing, whether it be sports, careers, politics, or business.
What is it that makes winners special and sets them apart from losers at the opposite end of the scale?
Is it something that you are born with, some innate sense of winning, can it be learned or developed?
Several characteristics are usually associated with winners. They have:
– determination; it would be too easy to give up without it,
– motivation that keeps them going and striving for the final prize, whatever that may be, and
– a belief that they can win.
As Kobe Bryant, NBA star for the Los Angeles Lakers, put it:
“Losers visualise the penalties of failure. Winners visualise the rewards of success.”
Winners focus on the process to get them where they want to be and accept that not every step will be a positive one. They accept that along their journey, there will be failures, but their mindset prevents them from giving up.
This is the key to successful people (winners) – their mindset.
It allows them to focus on the process and never give up. They keep learning and improving, pushing themselves until they reach their goal. This is done with purpose, continually measuring their performance, and changing what needs to change in order to improve. In many cases, it is a process of one step forward and two steps back, but they stick to it.
Talk to any professional athlete or Olympic sportsperson, and they will tell you they have failed many times. They have the mindset that gets them out of bed at 4 a.m. to swim in a cold pool or run around a track in the rain.
Their mindset always tells them that they can succeed and win. It is a matter of finding the correct process rather than simply being talented and the determination to stick at it.
My Personal Experience
I remember when I was at school, I was an O.K athlete. Good in short distance, and slightly above average in longer distance running, but being short, I was hopeless at things like the high jump. I wanted to find something that I could do; that I could win.
In the under-14 group, I won the all-around cup for athletics. It was a win, but I saw it as a reward for being average at everything I tried. The more events you competed in, the more points you could get (for being average). That is exactly what happened. I went in everything, whether I was good at it or not.
The following year, I focused on hurdles. I was a reasonable 100-meter runner, was a light frame, and had a good spring.
That year, I focused all my training on hurdles. Every night after school I was out training to perfect my rhythm, which is the key to hurdles. I spiked myself three times in the leg with my spiked running shoes, trying to get it just right.
I won the 120-metre hurdles event at the school sports competition and broke the school record. At the combined school athletics competition, a few weeks later I also won and broke the record that had previously stood for over 30 years.
I never ran another hurdle race. Life got in the way.
What it did for me was to say, “If you have the right mindset and the determination to overcome each failure with success, you can win at anything.”
The mindset of winners sets them apart; they visualise success and winning. Losers drown in doubt and indecision and leave no possibility for winning.
Till next time, thanks for reading,
Calvin
