How to keep winning

Robert Ringer, author of Million Dollar Habits, explains it well: “The world is saturated with intelligent, highly educated, extraordinarily skilled people who experience ongoing frustration because of their lack of success. Millions of others spend their lives working hard, long hours only to die broke.… Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific, simple habits that always lead to success.”

“The secret to your success can be found in your daily agenda.” ~John Maxwell, bestselling author and success leader. This article is a brief synopsis in my own words of an article Maxwell wrote on the Success magazine website (Success.com). Maxwell says that success is a habit that we cultivate every day.

1. Winners are passionate about their goals and dreams

People who have a winner mentality enjoy what they are doing, they enjoy the journey and enjoy the dream even before they reach the goal. What really motivates you in life? What would you really enjoy doing if you could do anything in life? When you find that, you will never work a day in your life, you will be playing instead of working.

2. Winners focus on their strong points, not their weak points.

Some people think that in order to be successful you must work on your weaknesses. But actually it is best to find out what your strengths are and work on those. If you think about it, it makes more sense to start with what you are good at and cultivate that.

3. Winners have the right attitude.

It really is true, your attitude determines your altitude in life, in other words it determines how high you will go in life. Dr. Charles Swindoll, the prolific writer and speaker said:

“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, than 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 our 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 play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.”

4. Winners don’t quit

If you quit, you are sure to lose, that is the only thing you can do to totally ensure failure. In many of my posts I write about people who failed many times but keep on trying, and then become fantastically successful. Even the best leaders get discouraged, but the difference between a winner and a loser is the winner finds a way to encourage himself. It might be reading stories of people who overcome great obstacles to gain victory, or it might be books about strategies to succeed in whatever they are doing.

“ We seem to love stories of overnight successes, but the truth is there aren’t any. If you want to be a consistent winner, you’ve got to work at it every day. Success comes from developing the habits of winning.” John Maxwell