“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” -Zig Ziglar

Don’t you hear often people complaining that they do not have the attitude of a winner? They talk as if the winner’s attitude is something godsend and if they don’t have it then it is difficult for them to win in life. But in my opinion “attitude of a winner” is readily built in all of us (see above quote and note – “You were born to win!!”). There is just a need to uncover our winner’s attitude from layers hiding it. Winner’s Attitude is like those sexy six pack abs which is hidden under the layers of fat. Once you remove the fat then six packs are visible. Just like this we all have winner attitude, we just need to identify the layers covering these and then remove these layers systematically to uncover our attitude.

Simplistically saying – winner is a person who wants to win at ‘any cost’ and ‘any situation’. Mark these two words again – “at any cost” means ready to sacrifice – be it family life or comfort zone. A winner is always ready to give up some of his luxuries to achieve success. And he does it in “any situation”; he does not look for excuses in failures. Anyone can win if you get everything going for you – but the challenge is to win when some or most of the factors are not favoring you. A winner wins at any cost and any situation.

I bet after reading the above paragraph most of you would say – ‘hey this is me. I want to win’. And this is the point of this post – we all are born to win. But we let multiple negativities (layers) to cover our winning attitude. This happens either due to social upbringing or personal factors. Whatever it may be but the end result is – we have locked our winning attitude inside and are not able to enjoy the success as much as we should. Identify the layers hiding your winner attitude and unleash the winner buried inside.

5 most common Layers are listed below –

1. Fear of Failure

Fear of failure is the most prominent layer covering our winning attitude. The expectation of success is so much that we hate to see ourselves fail and thus give up trying. But true winners know that failures are nothing but staircases to the ultimate success. Fear of failure turns us into quitters. I have written before – success is not an event but a process. Do not worry about failures – it is the part of the process. Take learning from your failures and continue trying. If you work hard and be persistent then you will win eventually.

2. Not working hard enough and then blaming others

Are you one of the unfortunate ones who start to look for excuses before even starting something? I hope you are not. But this is another significant layer on top of our winning attitude. People who are good at making excuses never try whole heartedly because they are confident of coming up with excuse in event of a failure. These people are an expert of making excuses rater than an expert of winning. The focus is always finding an excuse instead of putting our energies to achieve success. Please note that success requires determination and hard work and if something is done half hearted then the probability of success diminishes.

3. Giving up too often and too easy

Always remember that path to success is not a 100 meter sprint. It is rather 10 Mile marathon. Running a marathon requires determination and hard work. Don’t start looking for the finish line every 100 meters or so when you are running a marathon. It is a mistake and will only frustrate you and forcing you into quitting. Winners know the mantra of a marathon and they do not believe in short sprints.

4. Not owning Responsibility and always Playing ‘victim’

All of us love success and quick to take credit for it. But what is your attitude when something negative happens? We rapidly move into blaming mode; it is always someone else’s fault. It gives us momentarily satisfaction or false belief that we are not the reason for failure. This is destructive mindset because we will move into blame mode without even trying our best. Winners own up the responsibility of the failures and move on towards success.

5. Self Doubt – “I Cannot achieve this” attitude

Winners always believe in their abilities. But we remain in doubt and this doubt never let us thinking positively about our goals. Let us not forget, before we go out in open and try to sell our abilities, first we need to convenince ourselves of our own abilities. Many a times the difference between the loser and winner is the expectation from self. A winner always has high expectation from self and he believes in himself for meeting those expectations.

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