OK I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear!
We all want to believe that winners get there because they are lucky or naturally talented or they knew the right people or because they knew some magic “secret” that no one else knew. But the truth is that whenever you look closely at anyone who is really succeeding in life you find out that the harder they work the luckier they get.
Real winners know that in order to achieve lasting success sacrifices will have to be made. Real winners know that they will have to work really hard, often when they would rather be doing other things and often when they are really tired, frustrated, sick and broke. Real winners know that stress is part of the deal and that if they want to stay successful they are going to have to find a way to deal with stress rather than collapse with a nervous breakdown and let everyone else take the strain! Real winners know that lasting success takes time and they are prepared to stick with it until the job is done.
The thing is that not everyone has it in them to be a real winner. The sad truth about life is there are winners and losers and the winners generally win because they have put in more time, more energy, more effort, more thought, more passion. And sometimes they put all of that in and still don’t always win because, like it or not, life isn’t always fair.
But winning is not just a one time thing and if you consistently put in the time, the energy, the effort, the thought and the passion, over time you will find yourself so far ahead of what you believed possible you will know that it is always worth it.
You never know when you are going to make that breakthrough. But even when you make it, only your best effort will pull you through to true lasting success. So isn’t it worth making your best effort a habit?
I find it unnecessarily harsh to divide people into winners and losers, who by implication is everyone who is not a winner. I suffered a stress breakdown last year and I find it unhelpful to thus be labelled a loser! I do feel bad about having to rely on others, but in some ways, that is an important life lesson to learn, that we are interdependent and sometimes we help others and sometimes we need their help.
I would not call the person coming in last in a marathon a loser. They had the gumption to enter, to train, to complete a gruelling course when many others fail or don’t even try. But only the person coming first won the race. I’m working hard at trying to recover. I’m not giving up, not losing. But I’m not trying to win, to be better than everyone else. I think the real winners are those who stop along the way to help someone who’s struggling. You help the strugglers as well as the winners, I found your posts about the reptile brain helpful, and some of your others too. I find that more admirable than cheerleading the few in the lead of the race
Thanks.
I think it depends on your definition of what winning is. And it has to be your personal definition otherwise you will constantly be comparing yourself to others which is really not helpful.
By the definition of a Marathon as a race, yes, everyone but the person coming first is a loser. That’s the definition of a race and you can not like it but its still true. Life is just not that simple though.
Having a stress breakdown doesn’t make you a loser. Losers rarely put enough effort into anything to get even close to a stress breakdown! Having to rely on others doesn’t make you a loser, it makes you human, every one of us has to rely on other people to make our lives work. Failing doesn’t make you a loser either – giving up makes you a loser. What I was railing against here was people who sit around doing nothing and then complain that its not fair that they don’t get to play with the nice toys that successful people get to play with. For the most part, they’ve earned those toys. And I would bet they have had their fair share of “loser” moments along the way (I know I have and I expect more!) but they have just not given up. And that’s the difference.
By my personal definition of success everyone who finishes a marathon is a winner even if they take a week to do it. But that’s not the race’s definition.
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