As Vince Lombardi once said,
Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
To win is at the heart of life's race. In sports. In business. In relationships. It gives us a drive, something to strive for. And the beauty in it is what it can lead to.
Winning inspires innovation. Winning builds heroes. Winning gives underdogs a chance. But how is it that you win? Is it about discipline? Preparation? A certain will to make things happen? Yes. Yes. And Yes. There's not just one thing, but a handful of things.
Of those things, one gets lost in the sauce too often.
John Wooden built his pyramid of success which became the foundation for his success at UCLA. But when Wooden and his players wanted to win a national championship, break another record, or get over a funk, he turned to the power of forgetting.
If you want to extend a winning streak – forget about it. If you want to break a losing streak – forget about it. Forget about everything except concentrating on hard work and intelligent planning…The best way to achieve dreams is to ignore them.
It's the same thing Phil Knight wrote in his autobiography, Shoe Dog.
People reflexively assume that competition is always a good thing, that it always brings out the best in people, but that’s only true for people who can forget the competition. The art of competing, I’d learned from track, was the art of forgetting, and I now reminded myself of that fact. You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past. You must forget that internal voice screaming, begging, “Not one more step.”
At the very heart of winning, is forgetting that you're trying to win at all. It's about focusing on the only thing that you can. This moment. This minute. This action.
Philosopher Eckart Tolle explained it beautifully,
Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.
When you want to win, you're always thinking about winning. When you're thinking about winning, you lose sight of what leads to winning--what you're doing right now.
If you can learn to forget, winning is never that far away.
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