Why Winners Win

And how to be one of them

Plenty of research has been conducted into what makes a winner. The principles of being a winner are broadly similar regardless of whether it is winning in business, sports, relationships, warfare, the arts, and winners at life in general.

The Good News About Winning

There’s so much known about winners, you too, can find out then apply the secrets of winners.

Better yet, once a winner starts winning, their chances of winning again go up.

The Bad News About Winning

Winning isn’t easy.

Although the lessons of winners are easy to understand, they are hard to put into practice. Winning means work, work and more work, but also success, then higher success and super-success!

Let’s take a closer look at how winners win.

1. Persistence

Believe it or not, failing at something is a great way to become successful. Experience teaches a lesson no advice could impart, and not being at the top just means there's more room to grow.

Winners don’t see obstacles as one solid, insurmountable barrier, but as a collection of small inconveniences. This positive outlook allows them to develop higher levels of persistence. Winners continue to see a positive outcome, long after others have given up hope.

Thomas Edison, the world-famous inventor and businessman, explained his secrets to success in an interview with a reporter: "In working out an invention, the most important quality is persistence. Nearly every man who develops a new idea works it up to a point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That’s not the place to get discouraged, that’s the place to get interested. Hard work and forever sticking to a thing till it’s done, are the main things an inventor needs. I can’t recall a single problem in my life, of any sort, that I ever started on that I didn’t solve, or prove that I couldn’t solve it. I never let up until I had done everything that I could think of..."

2. Effort

Winners know that without extra effort it is impossible to win.

Winners give all of themselves and hold nothing back. They create their own opportunities through extra effort.

If possible, winners work harder rather than smarter, though even most winners are not capable of this hack. For most winners, it really does just come down to hard work!  

3. Attitude

Positive attitudes precede positive results.

Before we can win, we must assume the mental attitude that it is impossible for us to fail. Instead, losers often judge their efforts with pessimistic logic instead of reinforcing their efforts with optimistic hope. Pessimistic people always have a perfectly logical reason for their lack of success. Winners realise that a positive attitude is not the product of logic, but of belief. We can choose to be happy if we believe that we can be happy.

Positive moods produce physical energy and the resilience to persist after setbacks. While losers use any excuse to stop, winners sometimes play on even while injured, lifted by a kind of winners’ high. Moreover, psychologists find that moods are contagious. Winners’ exhilaration is infectious. Losers’ gloom can be toxic.

"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Thomas Jefferson

While losers stay within their comfort zone and maintain the same level of performance, winners challenge themselves to exceed their personal best results and performances. Their winning attitude comes from the belief that every personal best, no matter how great, can be improved upon.

4. Courage

Sir Winston Churchill once defined courage as

"...the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all the others."

Courage is often called the best antidote to fear and anxiety.

5. Competition

Winners realise that competition is the only way to get better, to get tougher and to taste the sweetness of victory.

While losers avoid competition, winners thrive on it.

Most people don’t compete simply because they think they are not cut out to win. Avoiding competition means you’ll never find out how good you really are. Sir Edmund Hillary once reflected on what it means to compete:

"You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. The intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got, is a very pleasant bonus."

Competition is like the stone that sharpens the axe. If you want to be the best you can be at anything, you will have to meet and exceed the efforts of your competition. It simply boils down to this, if you want to be the best, you must be able to beat the best.

6. Adversity

Winners know when they face adversity, they have two choices: to seek comfort or to seek solutions. Losers seek comfort, winners press on.

“Losers focus on what they are going through; winners focus on what they are going to do” John C. Maxwell

Winners are not afraid of adversity. They accept adversity and failure as part of the game. "To fail," says psychologist David Viscott, "is a natural consequence of trying. To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying again."

When winners are facing a tough problem or lose a game or any other event, they can treat the adverse situation either as a test of their strength or as a testimony to their weakness. We can manage adversity by meeting it head-on, by working smarter next time around. Or, we have the choice to do nothing, hoping the problem will go away.

Many times, winners will turn adversity into an opportunity. To win means to find the pearl of wisdom contained in every adverse situation.

The Bottom Line: Winners Then Keep Winning

Whether your personal definition of winning involves competing every four years in the Olympics, or competing every day in business, winning brings advantages that make it easier to keep winning.

If you focus on attitude, knowledge, skill, and competent action to give you a solid framework to boost your potential and achieve prosperity, you’ll soon start winning.

Then, you’ll be well on your way to building your winning streak!