How to Be a Winner in Life

Posted on Balanced Lifestyle, Balanced Mind and Soul | August 21, 2009 | 1 Comment

This post was written by Anastasiya. Follow me on Twitter or StumbleUpon and keep your life balanced!

Image by hikingartist

I think there is hardly any person in the world who does not want to be a winner. The desire to win starts at school when you want to win first place for the best science project or to win the affection of that cool-looking guy (girl). Then you want to win favor in your parents’ eyes when they are considering what kind of car to get you for your 16th birthday. And then it starts rolling like a snow ball:

• win at college,
• win a running competition,
• win your fight with weight,
• win the heart of your future spouse,
• win the best job with the best benefits,
• win…
• …win,
• win…

Some people seem to be able to win everything in life and the blogosphere like any other area is full of success stories of regular Joes who firmly took possession of their lives. It does not take them any effort to do whatever they want to (at least it seems so): lose weight, be happy in marriage, have a successful career, write a book and sell millions of copies, work from home, quit their day job, enjoy life and be BALANCED. Is it something genetic that makes them so incredibly successful? I really do not think so.

The other day I went for my regular run. I am not a super runner and I enjoy just 30 minutes of running every other day (I am still way too far from being able to run a marathon or compete in any other race). And when I started running it struck me. I finally realized the formula or golden rule for being a winner in life.

Do you know how many people start running every day? I don’t (I really tried to find some statistics but I had no luck with it) but I am sure there are thousands if not millions of people going for their first run every day. They get ready, get all excited about losing weight and being healthy and fit, they get their running shoes on (probably the ones that have been sitting in the closet for the past few years) then here they go. First step, second step…. Knees start to hurt. Something is not right in the back. Third step, fourth step…. Not enough air, got to start huffing and puffing. Fifth step, sixth step… heart is trying to jump out of their rib cage. It’s just too difficult. It’s not for them. They are just not made for running. They give up.

Why am I telling you this? Well, running is like life and being a runner is like living your life. You decide that you want to do something and you want to be a winner. You are all excited and you jump into it without any thought or preparation (running shoes are too old and make your feet hurt even when you walk in them. You think that running is as simple as moving your feet back and forth and it really is not especially at the beginning). Then you make the first few steps and something just does not feel right. You do not get results as fast as you want to, you do not become successful just because you are YOU, you feel that you are a failure and you do not like this feeling. You decide to give up and try something else, maybe you will have more luck there and you won’t have this feeling of disappointment or worthlessness.

The truth is that if you have this mindset then you will never be a winner in life. It takes a little bit more than just luck and desire to win at something. It takes work, preparation, and most of all FAILURE to become a winner in life. A winner is not somebody who does not fall. A winner is a person who can get up and try again. This is the biggest difference between winners and, well, losers.

Every time that I go running I have to fight during the first 5 minutes. My entire body feels stiff and everything hurts and does not feel right. I feel like it’s just not the right day for running. Maybe I should skip running today and try it the next time? I just need to give myself some rest because, POOR ME, I have been so busy today and my body is asking for rest. These are treacherous thoughts that would have prevented me from being a winner if I had given in to them. But the magic is that after these 5 minutes are over with I finally feel my strength. I can keep running and nothing can stop me. I do not feel any pains, my breathing is steady, my mind is calm and set on my goal.

If you want to be a winner in life you need to identify these treacherous thoughts and you need to learn to fight them. It is always difficult to start something new and even more difficult to keep up with it. If you want to be a winner you need to be able to go past the first “5 minutes” when everything inside of you is telling you to give up. It’s not easy but who told you that being a winner is easy?

Another thing about running is that you have to find your pace. If you run too fast then you will be out of breath before you know it and there will be no way that you can continue. If you go too slow then it will take you AGES to get anywhere. Experimenting with your pace is fine and you should be comfortable at whatever speed you are going. Somebody is a good marathon runner and somebody is a sprinter in life and different people will need different speeds to become winners. Find you pace and stick to it.

Unfortunately there is no one-way-fit-all type advice that would tell you how to be a winner in life. And if there was one then I am sure our world would have been completely loser-free a long time ago. I do not walk on the road to winning, I am running and it helps me get where I want to be in life. If you want to be a winner in life then just use this running strategy and see where it will take you. You have everything it takes to be a winner, you just have to use it.

Keep it balanced!