WIN EVERYWHERE
For anyone who considers themselves a competitor in any important area of life, the commitment to competing and winning is not a part-time responsibility. In fact, the more serious you are about reaching your potential and the more serious you are about achieving success, the less part-time winning becomes.
The Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi said it best when he said, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while. You don’t do things right once in a while. You do them right all the time.” That quote speaks to the mindset and perspective that sets the champions apart. They recognize that opportunities are everywhere - every day, including here today - for them to compete and win.
Champions possess the unique ability to zoom in and fully commit to competing, right where their feet are. It’s easy of course for any of us to recognize the value and the magnitude of winning our big, public moments, when everyone’s watching us compete under the bright lights of the big stage. But champions have developed that same kind of commitment to competing and winning, even in the small, seemingly insignificant moments that most other people might be tempted to overlook or neglect. Champions recognize the value of every opportunity, even the ones that don’t get much fanfare or recognition. For people like Vince Lombardi, winning is an all the time thing.
Recognizing the value of those opportunities starts with recognizing why they’re so important. Why do those small, seemingly insignificant moments matter - and matter so much - to the champion? There are two reasons why. Here’s the first: small moments matter because in any important area of performance, the process determines the outcome. It’s easy for any of us to focus on, worry about, or spend our time dwelling on the outcome we want, but the most effective way to earn that outcome is to fully commit to the process that earning it requires. That means forgetting about some important event occurring far off into the future, and instead giving all your energy and attention to whatever’s right in front of you. That’s the best formula for making sure you are as prepared as possible to execute and perform when that important future moment eventually arrives.
The other reason why champions recognize those small moments as valuable is because each one of them serves as an opportunity to further validate who you are and what you’re all about. Let’s go back to that famous Vince Lombardi quote from earlier. He said, “Winning isn’t a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t do things right once in a while. You do them right all the time.” There’s one more line to that Lombardi quote that is so powerful and so true. “Winning is a habit,” he concludes. “Unfortunately, so is losing.”
What he means is that each time you make that difficult choice to step in the arena and compete - no matter how small that arena is or how many other people acknowledge that choice - you are further establishing that commitment to winning as a habit in your life and as a valuable part of your character and identity.
At the same time, every time you neglect that opportunity - every time you choose not to compete, and in doing so allow yourself to settle for something less than your best, even in the small, private moments no one else knows about - then you are building that losing habit, and further cementing that as part of your character and identity. If Vince Lombardi is right - if winning is in fact a habit - then there’s value in every opportunity to place another tally mark in that win column here today, and in doing so to continually provide more and more evidence that a winner is who you are, and that winning is just what you do.