THINK LIKE A WINNER!

THINK LIKE A WINNER!

The aim of this article  is to help busy people overcome the time constraints in their lives that severely limit self-improvement.  It concentrates on the one most significant causal factor that determines all self-directed purposeful behavior; namely, the personal beliefs and their associated images that people hold about themselves and their abilities, and the expectations these beliefs in turn generate.

So,

          “If you want to get the result that      winners get, you must first think like a winner thinks!”

Consider the following cause-and -effect relationship to see how personal beliefs represent the very foundation of your life.

WHEN YOU CHANGE YOUR THINKING,

You change your beliefs;

When you change your beliefs,

You change your expectations,

When you change your expectations,

You change your attitude;

When you change your attitude,

You change your behavior;

When you change your behavior,

You change your performance;

When you change your performance,

       YOU CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

The rewards you receive in life do not come because of your potential.  They come as a result of your performance.  It is your performance, then, that you must focus on an ultimately improve upon.  There will always be impediments between what you want and what you’ve got.  Your attitude towards these temporary obstacles, rather than the obstacles themselves, will determine in the end whether you succeed or fail.     Attitudes are more important than facts.”  All success is “self”-centered.  As you will see, it must begin and be brought about from within.

 

The Challenge in Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is practical living.  Off all the choices available to you, it is the most productive and the most fulfilling.  Your reality is what you make it to be.  It is your perception of reality that will make all the difference in the way you think, the way you behave, and the way you perform.  You can learn to find the good even in the bad, thereby making the bad not so bad anymore.  “We know what we are but know not what we may be,” was the keen observation of William Shakespeare.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, “The power, then, is within you.  Your ability to change your life lies in your capacity to think, and to think differently if you choose.  Thinking is the highest form of activity humans are capable of performing; yet few people really think.  Too often you trick yourself into believing you are thinking because you are aware of some mental activity going on in your mind.  “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.  To a very large extent, all that you accomplish or fail to accomplish in life is a direct result of the images you hold in your mind. 

Your mind is the force behind the marvelous success system within you.  Whatever you believe, picture in your mind, and think about most the time, you eventually will bring into reality.  If you say to yourself can’t” “I am not worthy,” or “It will never happen to me,” then this is what you will tend to bring about.  By believing in scarcity, you will “see” scarcity, you will experience scarcity, and for you, there will be scarcity.

Scarcity is the mother of selfishness, jealousy, aggressiveness, and resentment.  All of its effects are negative.   Abundance is the mother of prosperity, creativity, kindness, and love.  All of its effects are positive.

RISK AND CHANGE

All change involves an element of risk – risk of the unknown and risk of failure.  But change, whether you like it or not, is inevitable.  To bring about change in self is not the easiest thing in the world to do.  It takes a great deal of desire, self-discipline, concentration, and effort-, which is why so few people actually change significantly in their lifetime.  If you have changed, it only means you have changed your particular manner of thinking.  If you have not, it only means you have not changed your p0articular manner of thinking.  This is your choice, a choice available to each of us.  It is never too late to begin living a more satisfying and more fulfilling life.  “Man is not the sum of what he is but the totality of what he might be.”

KEY FACTOR OF SUCCESS (FOS)

I.POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE:

 You must think about the attitude if you want to think like a winner.  Attitude is where all change and all success begins.  It is the filter through which you view the entire world and this determines the messages you get from everything you experience.  Your attitude decides who and what you are, and whether you respond to events under control or out of control.  You can alter and improve your attitude only by analyzing and changing your personal belief system.  This necessarily takes efforts.  “People and things do not upset us rather we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.”  “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

The following quote by Charles Swindoll is titled “Attitude”: -

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.  It is more important than the past, then education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.  It will make or break a company… a church… a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  We cannot change the past.  We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is playing on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.  I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.  And so it is with you.  We are in charge of our Attitudes.

II.TOTAL BELIEF IN YOURSELF:

Have confidence in yourself.  Believe in your abilities, for you are who you think you are.  You have the necessary skills and abilities to accomplish great things.  You need only accept this fact to move ahead with your life.  There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.  The following anonymous poem titled “Believe in yourself” helps put things in proper perspective:-

Believe in yourself! You’re divinely designed

Perfectly made for the work of mankind.

 

This truth you must cling to through danger and pain

The heights man has reached you can also attain.

Believe to the very last hour, for its true

That whatever you have been gifted to do.

Believe in yourself and step out unafraid

By misgivings and doubt be not easily swayed.

You’ve the right to succeed, the precision of skill

Which betokens the great, you can earn if you will!

The wisdom of ages is yours if you’ll read

But you’ve got to believe in yourself to succeed.

III.CHALLENGING GOALS

Our plans miscarry because they have not aim.  When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”  Among all living organisms on earth, only humans are born without a built-in software program for success.  Humans are free to imagine themselves as successes or failures, as winners or losers, or as positive or negative.  Of course, you get precisely what you see and dwell upon.    It has been said that once you have decided on a clear, focused goal for your life, you will have it because it will have you. A firmly entrenched goal literally forces you to stay on course until you reach your target.  “Goal setting is a thinking exercise that activates the natural success system within you.

IV.RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR:

People accept responsibility for those things that are going well in their life and forgo responsibility for those things that are going poorly.  If things at work are not ideal, it must be your boss who is at fault.  If things at home are not perfect, it must be your spouse who is to blame.  But this kind of thinking can lead nowhere.  There is a direct relationship between the amount of control you enjoy and the amount of responsibility you accept. Winners accept full responsibility for what they think, what they say, and what they do.  Hence they are able to control these aspects of their lives.  Losers always blame someone or something else for the results they achieve.  Since they are unable to control all the people and things around them, they are out of control and beyond help.  They blow with the wind and are manipulated by every chance and circumstance that comes their way.

Let’s list just some of the things that you can control.  You can control your thinking, beliefs, imaginations, goals, and associates, eat & exercise, environment, response to situations and circumstances, the joy & sadness.  The most prominent feature of all fully mature, high-achieving human beings is their willingness to accept full responsibility for all aspects of their lives.

V.TIME MANAGEMENT

Few people appreciate the true value of time, for time wasted is time lost forever.  Time is the only commodity allocated equally to all, whether rich or poor, male or female, wise or not so wise.  Time management involves setting priorities and disciplining yourself.  There is really no such thing as lack of time.  Everyone has sufficient time to do what has to be done, at least the most important things that really matter.   Time management is really self-management.  It is a thinking exercise that involves setting priorities and disciplining yourself in the use of time in order to derive maximum benefit.  Not having the time to carry out a specific task usually means you have not given sufficiently high priority to it.  The secret to finding the time to do the things that need to be done is to develop a real sense of urgency and commitment to the task, to really want rather than just wish to do it.  Two key pre-requisites of effective time management are:-

1.             A clear, focused goal that is measurable.

2. A detailed plan of action for its implementation on a daily basis

To be effective, you need to know what you have to do to get where you want to go.  You have to clearly identify the major goal that is important to you and formulate a master plan describing how you intend to go about achieving it.  Every goal requires a decision; every decision dictates a process; every process involves a plan; and every plan needs time for implementation.  Time must be controlled, since it is slipping away minute by minute, hour by hour.  Either you catch it and use it as it comes your way, or it passes you by.

VI.PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

One of life’s greatest challenges and hopes is to create and look forward to the next stage of personal development.  If you dedicate yourself to a program of personal growth and development, nothing can stop you from moving ahead in your life.  Whatever you end up accomplishing is a direct result of your efforts to improve yourself.  You can never be a failure without your consent.  Since no one can possibly care more about you than you care about yourself, the responsibility rests with you to set this process in motion, to take the initiative, and to make it happen.

Learning is a lifelong process.  “The education of man is never completed until he dies.”  Education involves both learning of the new and unlearning of the old, and it can start anytime.  If you haven’t yet started your own personal development program, now is the time to begin.  Personal development requires two things: an admission that you don’t know all you need to know in order to get ahead, and a commitment to begin learning these things.  Of course, it requires a certain amount of dedication and hard work, a willingness to sacrifice some short-term pleasures for long-term gain.  Winners always do what they have to do, when they have to do it, because they know this is the price of success.

Personal development involves working on yourself, on the key mental skills that you must contribute to the performance equation.  The more you improve yourself, the more you’ll like, respect, and believe in yourself.  You’ll begin to see yourself in a different light, and your mind will open up to new challenges and opportunities.  Opportunities and challenges always gravitate toward the person who believes in them.

VII. THINK ABOUT HEALTH

You must think health if you want to think like a winner!  You’re physical, mental, and spiritual health cannot be ignored except at your peril.  Poor health in any of these areas can cause your sickness, pain, depression and despair, not to mention a shorter lifespan.  You must work hard at maintaining a high level of health and accept responsibility for all of your actions that are health related.   There is no cure for a lifetime of bad health habits.  Exercise is only one key element of a successful health regimen.

VIII. CREATIVITY

All the objects you see are the result of the work of some creative human being.  In reality, you are looking not at “things,” but at thoughts manifested in their physical form.    It was a thought that created the chair you sits on, the pen you write with, and the light you read by.  It is people with ideas, dreams, and vision that create what you have.  The world is governed totally by thought.  Everything you perceive without is the result of what has been thought about within.  You are what you think.  You enjoy what human thought has created.  Creativity is an ability given to us at birth.  There is no meaning to life except the meaning man given his life by the unfolding of his powers.

An excellent definition of creativity is that it is the making of the new or the rearranging of the old in a new way.  It represents the actualization of human potential, of the creative energy of your subconscious mind.  When everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking at all.

IX. SERVICE

The principle of service can best be summarized by the statement “Give and you shall receive in kind.” 

X.EXCELLENCE

Make the commitment to become excellent at what you do, for in excellence you will find your true self.  When we raise our sights, strive for excellence, dedicate ourselves to the highest goals of our society, we are enrolling in an ancient and meaningful cause – the age-long struggle of humans to realize the best that is in them.”

Only when you attain excellence in your chosen field can you hope to become truly successful in life.  Anything less and you cannot hope to reach your full potential.  The market always pays in relation to performance.  It always pays top rewards for top performance whether in sports, the arts, business or the game of life.  Excellence translates into a labor of lover.

XI.SUPERIOR HUMAN RELATIONS

YOUR MASTER KEY TO SUCCESS

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”  Anyone hoping to become successful must develop the ability to motivate and influence other people effectively and in positive, predictable ways.  To be able to do the things you want to do in both your personal and professional life, you need the support and cooperation of other people – a key of core belief.  Few things of any significance can be accomplished without the help of other people.  You cannot expect something for nothing.  If properly carried out, both parties will grow and benefit from the experience.  There are basically three choices available to you when trying to influence other people.  The first is to ignore people and simply hope they will act in your best interest.  The second option is to use coercion and force to compel others to act in the specific way you desire.  The third option is to persuade people to do what you want them to do simply because they really want to.

In essence, superior human relations involve adding value to other people because they, like you, deserve it.  It is giving people something they want – recognition, in return for something you want – their cooperation.  When you increase the self-esteem of others, you are showing them respect and that you expect the best form them, thereby helping them perform at their maximum.

It is interesting to realize that each of us is potentially a millionaire, at least in what we have to give to others.  We all possess valuable, intangible assets that others desperately want.  We all have acceptance, approval, appreciation, respect and encouragement in unlimited quantity – to give!  It is in this way that we acknowledge the importance of other people.  They don’t cost us anything and they can never be all used up, we all have this fortune to share.

Recognition is the deepest craving in human nature.  It is the acknowledgement of the importance of people.  You are who you think you are, but you are also a function of what other people think of you.  “A successful human relation is really the art of making other people feel good about them.

XII. LEADERSHIP

“An organization is only as great as the people in it, and the people are only as great as the organization allows them to be.”

So how does a winner think?  Here is a list of the ten core beliefs.  Consider each one carefully, and imagine what your world would begin to look like if you held the same beliefs and made them a part of your life today.

One:     Winners are not born, they are made.

Two:     The dominant force in your existence is the thinking you engage in.

Three:  You are empowered to create your own reality.

Four:    There is some benefit to be had from every adversity.

Five:     Each one of your beliefs is a choice.

Six:       You are never defeated until you accept defeat as a reality and decide to stop trying.

Seven:  You already possess the ability to excel in at least one key area of your life.

Eight:   The only real limitations on what you can accomplish in your life are those you impose on yourself.

Nine:    There can be no great success without great commitment.

Ten:      You need the support and cooperation of other people to achieve any worthwhile goal.