The Winner's Mindset | How to Equip Yourself With The Mental Framework to Champion Any Challenge

In this article, we want to give you the mental framework and tools that you can use to create a winner’s mindset on your outlook of life. This won’t only help you achieve your fitness and health goals, but also enjoy a more fulfilling life in all aspects.

However, this will not make you immune to mistakes, pain or guarantee success without action. Instead it will show you a clear path forward to where the silver lining is popping out at you. 

Life truly is not just a zero sum game against yourself where you either win or lose. This game of life, with its ups and downs, is always a win-win. 

It just depends on our ability to recognize it for what it is.

In the past we had religion to guide us through the trials and tribulations that lead to spiritual growth and character development. It taught us through stories and parables why we couldn’t always get what we wanted, and that that was the way.

 Nowadays, what seems to be the majority of people are turning to new sources of stories to guide them through life, namely music, television and entertainment.

But many are returning to the old ways of life. Consecutive generations, lost by the lure of what life “should be like”, find themselves in a forever downward spiral of a war against their nature. The fight has no end in sight, and progress is never good enough to be happy. Happiness is reserved for only when total victory is achieved.

This article isn’t to persuade you to return to religion, but instead, find the value of religious faith in yourself, and once more be equipped with an indomitable spirit. This is what differentiates the Winner’s Mindset that always sees the Silver Lining from the Loser’s mindset that demands a loss to be registered.

Resist the loser that proclaims you have lost and failed simply because you have not won, yet. It is just yet to happen and that has nothing to do with the fact you can still win tomorrow.

Many’s job, wife, weekly partying, and unlimited internet entertainment stimulate their passion and zest for life less and less. Their never ending spurge of retail sales and ever expanding collection of things provide but a flicker of joy that quickly fades and is soon replaced by a loss of positive emotion.

If you’re anything like me, that word above - religion - seems to carry the weight of unforgivable sins and the idea of crazy people that can’t decide for themselves what is right or wrong. It too turned me away from its teachings my entire life.

But I have always concluded that I have faith.

Faith in myself that I could weather any storm or any challenge, and come out on top of it. Faith was that light in my mind that led me down the yet to be known, the yet to be experienced dark paths that lay between my present and future (goals).

Faith has the power to illuminate the most cynical of minds and break the shackles you may not have realized you’ve put onto yourself by tuning into the modern stories of today.  

The first thing you should understand is that you’ve been taught wrong all your life. From the time when you were a toddler, when you went to school, when you started your work life, you’ve always been taught that no matter what, you should always avoid mistakes. You should do everything as you’ve been told, stay inside the boundaries, and never do anything that could result in some kind of a deviation from “normalcy” or you would be punished! 

Naturally you’ve grown up to be a decent human being who tries to do everything the correct way and is afraid of making mistakes. And if you make them, you feel really really bad and incompetent to do the right thing.

All of this is wrong.

As human beings, we need to “make mistakes” to test, learn, and develop our self confidence and the skill of mastery. 

When you let go of the black-and-white image of the world, you’ll start to realize that there aren’t any failures or mistakes. Every time you try something, test yourself, experience a setback — it’s just another invaluable lesson from which you can learn how to do it better the next time.

If I am certain of any one thing in life, it is that the sun will rise tomorrow and with it, brings a fresh clock, and opportunities to work.

A favourite quote of mine by Marcus Aurelius embodies the inherent truth of man and what he bases the value of himself and the source of that self perspective…

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.”

 

You see I am no cynic, nor am I an optimist. But I am in agreement with the realist that sees no value in complaining of the way life is. 

It is relieving to accept that life comes with it, endurable events that some call suffering. Suffering is truly optional. Ask any buddhist and they will smile when you talk of pain.

You can agree that discomfort is pain, or you can agree that anything tolerable by the standard of human nature, is progress-able and in turn progress being made in terms of the fortitude of your faith in self.

The champion did not wait to become the champion and to believe it to be true. He first had to believe he would BeCome the Champion. Then he made haste slowly, embodying the nature of what dictates the champion. Thus becoming fit to be crowned an indisputable champion.

He could not wither to let sensation be the force that stuck him in a place of comfort, because that is not the nature of a champion.

He could not stop, because of failures made yesterday, because tomorrow would come and with it, a fresh clock of time that must be used up. 

What better way to use your time than to work relentlessly with patience at whatever it is you want?

So it is similar with nutrition, working out, losing weight, and daily habits. The way is never straight; you do and will, go through many ups and downs. This is the way we learn the roads to our destination. The way we develop the skill of mastery, and the way we build faith in ourselves that we can, if we will to succeed.

Although this might sound very cliche, the practical effect of not stressing every single time things don’t go your way is enormous. Most of the lifestyle transformation “projects” fail when the stress of not achieving instant and clear success suffocates our motivation. 

The truth is that success is NEVER 100% easy for anyone else, no matter what your work colleague told you about her weight loss project or what you read about the new bugman diet that helped superstar X lose Y pounds in just 20 days.

Start picturing your own future goals as climbing a mountain. You might have a few problems, like your footwear not being the best, or you might have to turn around and find another route due to lacking the necessary equipment, you might even get stuck at a single point and have to wait it out during a snowstorm. 

BUT every day you grow smarter and more experienced. Every day you move forward in your determination to succeed when you hold faith, and refuse to believe whatever it is, is unendurable or unconquerable.

So instead of trying to do everything correctly, do just the opposite — test yourself, make “mistakes,” learn as much as you can about yourself, push your limits and 10x your belief in yourself. 

You’ll learn that you are actually much stronger than that voice that tells you “good enough” after 12 burning reps. You’ll learn that making mistakes doesn’t cause the reality of this world to break into pieces, and that no one actually cares about your struggles since we’re all so focused on our own. 

The only actual failure is when you decide to give up when you run into challenges and start living inside the “World of imaginary excuses” of how easy it should be to succeed, or that you are just not cut out to be a winner. 

Choose your mode, it is your prerogative.