MAKE WINNING A HABIT
The idea of becoming a champion is attractive to each of us because champions win, and there are important areas of life where each of us want to win. There may not be a uniform for you to put on, a scoreboard keeping score or a trophy you have the opportunity to raise today, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some competition going on. It’s easy to see and celebrate the champion's winning performance under the bright lights of the big stage, where everyone’s watching, but I want to focus more on the mindset that drives the very best to make winning a habit in every area of life - even when no one’s watching - and challenge you here today to do the same.
Making winning a habit starts with recognizing just how many opportunities each day offers us to compete. Developing that kind of awareness is a skill we can build and develop. While it’s easy to spend our time and energy thinking about, dreaming about, and even worrying about our big, meaningful moments to come, making winning a habit requires us to zoom in and focus on the opportunities right in front of us today that help validate who we are and what we're all about.
Take a minute to stop and consider those things on your to-do list for the day ahead. Maybe there’s some monumental moment you’ve been anticipating, but I'd bet instead that today is filled with moments that could more accurately be described as routine, mundane, and seemingly insignificant. It’s easy on days like this to put our performance on autopilot and mindlessly check the boxes for completion, but champions recognize each one of those tasks as a chance to put another check in the win column.
While those tasks on your to-do list probably don’t involve a scoreboard, a trophy, or much fanfare or recognition, that doesn’t mean they don’t involve an opponent. The next step in making winning a habit is recognizing who - or maybe what - you’re competing against. Maybe there’s a deadline you’ve got to meet. Maybe it’s a particularly challenging, inconvenient, or annoying circumstance or situation that you’re forced to handle. Maybe it's some unexpected adversity you have to overcome. Champions see these challenges as opponents standing in the way of victory. They've created a standard of excellence that demands their full focus and their maximum effort in everything they do. The more they've made winning a habit, the clearer that standard becomes, and the harder it is for them to settle for anything less.
Once you’ve recognized the endless opportunities today, and recognized too the foe you’re facing, then it really comes down to one simple question: are you willing to step in the arena and compete? This is the last, the most important, and the most challenging part of making winning a habit. It’s easy to diminish the value of these moments no one else sees or celebrates, and easy to justify that they don’t really matter and that our very best is therefore unnecessary. It's easy to assume we’ll be able to flip that switch, rise to the occasion, and choose to compete when our big moments come.
But under pressure in the big moments, “you don’t rise to the occasion,” as the Navy Seals famously say. “You sink to the level of your training.” Making winning a habit is really about using today to build your winning mindset, to prepare yourself for those big moments ahead, and to validate that a winner is who you are...and that winning is just what you do. That means today is training. That’s not the way most people will approach it, but it is a decision that's available to you. That's a decision that makes today matter.
You have the power to make winning a habit in your life and your performance, but you also have the power to make losing a habit, too. Choosing to diminish or neglect those opportunities today - choosing to justify that what you're doing doesn’t really matter and that your very best isn't necessary - makes it easier to make that same choice again tomorrow. Training yourself to avoid the arena and take the easy way out might feel good in the moment, but it’s worth considering what it’s preparing you to do, and who it’s preparing you to be, when your big moments arrive.
Whatever’s in front of you today, I hope you’ll recognize it as a chance for you to do what champions do. I hope you’ll create for yourself a standard of excellence that demands your full focus and your maximum effort, and I hope you’ll make the difficult choice to step in the arena and compete, even if what you’re doing doesn’t seem all that significant, and even if no one else is there to see it or celebrate it. Why? Because a winner is who you are...and because winning is just what you do.