The Psychology of Winning: 10 Qualities of a Total Winner

1.  Positive Self-Expectancy 

"Life is a self fulfilling prophecy. True winners go into every event expecting to win." Positive self-expectancy is pure and simple optimism: real enthusiasm for everything you do. And optimism is expecting the most favorable result from your own actions. There never was a winner who didn’t expect to win in advance. Winners understand that life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they know that you usually get what you expect in the long run. So winners accept the belief that hope and a deep, unbreakable faith — forged into a fundamental attitude of positive self-expectancy — is the eternal spring from which all creative, motivating energy flows. In your quest for excellence, there are two powerful sets of great expectations affecting your life. First, there are the expectations that others close to you have for you. And then there are the expectations that you have for yourself. While we all try to rise to the expectations others have for us, there is no question that our limitations and success will be based, most often, on our own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.

2. Positive Self-Motivation   "True winners dig deep and find motivation inside themselves to get through that tough task or to learn a new skill."Be responsible for your personal development. You are what you allow yourself to be. In other words, the things that define you today have happened because you allowed them. If you have been lazy or indifferent all these years, you have no one to put the blame on but yourself. Even your environment cannot be made accountable for the person that you have or will become. You have always held the keys to improving your life. So, the initiative to improve yourself should come from you and whatever result you get from self-development programs is your responsibility.  Here is  a quote from Mark Victor Hansen he once said "Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful." - Mark Victor Hansen. 

 3. Positive Self-Image
"True winners are confident and view themselves as competent, valuable human beings." Self-image is how you perceive yourself. Conversely, others who have had a very difficult life and multiple hardships may also have a very positive self-image. Some believe that a person's self-image is defined by events that affect him or her (doing well or not in school, work, or relationships.) Also Self-image is the personal view, or mental picture, that we have of ourselves. Self-image is an “internal dictionary” that describes the characteristics of the self, including such things as intelligent, beautiful, ugly, talented, selfish, and kind. These characteristics form a collective representation of our assets (strengths) and liabilities (weaknesses) as we see them.   

   4. Positive Self-Direction
  "You gotta have direction if you are going to go anywhere. True winners know where they are going. Their sense of direction comes from the self and not from outside influences like parents or friends."  Self-direction gives you flexibility to choose the mix of supports and services that are right for you so you can live the life you want. With self-direction, YOU choose your services, the staff and organizations that provide them, and a schedule that works best for YOU. Each person is unique. Self-direction empowers people to design supports based on their unique strengths and needs. It gives you more control over the funding used to buy your services. Private speech. Private speech is speech spoken to oneself for communication, self-guidance, and self-regulation of behavior. Children from two to about seven years old can be observed engaging in private speech. Although it is audible, it is neither intended for nor directed at others.   

5. Positive Self-Control
"Total winners can sacrifice immediate pleasure for a gain in the future. Delayed gratification is of immense value in reaching your goals."  Goals: One has to have a goal. Goals basically guide our choices. The more specific the goal, the better able people are to reach it. A highly abstract goal may not be actionable (e.g., to get healthy). For example, instead of pursuing the goal of “being healthy”, a person may adopt the goal of “walking at least 30 minutes everyday”, which is more concrete and easier to monitor. Effective goal pursuits follow the SMART (link is external) criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based.  Motivation: The more you want the goal, the more likely you are willing to make the efforts and sacrifices required to achieve it. The strength of people’s commitment (link is external)to something depends on its value to them and the chance that the value will, in fact, occur (Value*Likelihood).  The relation between these two factors is multiplicative. This means that there will be no motivation to the goal pursuit if the value of the goal is zero, no matter how high is the likelihood of success. Similarly, there will be no motivation if the expected chance is quite low.


6. Positive Self-Discipline

      If you hope to achieve self-discipline, you must have a clear vision of what you hope to accomplish. You must also have an understanding of what success means to you. After all, if you don’t know where you are going, it’s easy to lose your way or get sidetracked. A clear plan outlines each step you must take in order to reach your goals. Figure out who you are and what you are about. Create a mantra to keep yourself focused. Successful people use this technique to stay on track and establish a clear finish line. We aren’t born with self-discipline--it’s a learned behavior. And just like any other skill you want to master, it requires daily practice and repetition. Just like going to the gym, willpower and self-discipline take a lot of work. The effort and focus that self-discipline requires can be draining. As time passes, it can become more and more difficult to keep your willpower in check. The bigger the temptation or decision, the more challenging it can feel to tackle other tasks that also require self-control. So work on building your self-discipline through daily diligence.

7. Positive Self-Esteem
"Your mood and outlook on life affect the way you see the world and how you interact in it. Total winners are positive, powerful people who make people feel good and provide a good vibe to those around him/her." to change from low self-esteem to healthy self-esteem is to create positive sanctuaries in your life, where on a regular basis you can receive supportive, realistic, and affirming messages. This can occur in the company of positive family members, friends, counselor, therapist, support groups, teachers, colleagues, or community organizations. Identify and embrace your basis of support based on acceptance of who you are as a person, empathy for your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and encouragement for you to move forward in your life in a healthy and constructive way. In addition, create a positive sanctuary in your own inner life. Each morning or evening, take a few minutes to acknowledging and affirm yourself. Validate what’s working in your life (no matter how large or small), identify purposeful goals, and count your blessings. Express gratitude for what you already have. Develop a daily ritual to resource and empower yourself.   

     8. Positive Self-Dimension
"Total winners like in the present. They know that now is all there is. They don’t get caught up in the past or worry about the future. They simply handle the business that they can handle which is the stuff going on today, now." This study examines four dimensions of self-defining memory (specificity, meaning, content, and affect) and their relationship to self-restraint, distress, and defensiveness. The development and validation of a protocol for measuring specificity, meaning, and affect in self defining memories is discussed. Specificity is operationalized as the
temporal and detailed specificity of the narrative. Meaning refers to the participant’s stepping back from the narrative to derive higher personal meaning or a life lesson. The four dimensions of self-awareness and how each shapes who you are. The dictionary says that self-awareness is "conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires." But self-awareness is multi-dimensional, there is more than one lens to look through when analyzing yourself.

   9. Positive Self-Awareness

Self Awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment. We might quickly assume that we are self aware, but it is helpful to have a relative scale for awareness. If you have ever been in an auto accident you may have experienced everything happening in slow motion and noticed details of your thought process and the event. This is a state of heightened awareness. With practice we can learn to engage these types of heightened states and see new opportunities for interpretations in our thoughts, emotions, and conversations. Having awareness creates the opportunity to make changes in behavior and beliefs. Self awareness is developed through practices in focusing your attention on the details of your personality and behavior. It isn’t learned from reading a book. When you read a book you are focusing your attention on the conceptual ideas in the book. You can develop an intellectual understanding of the ideas of self awareness from a book, but this is not the same. With your attention in a book you are practicing not paying attention to your own behavior, emotions and personality. If you have an emotional reaction of anger or frustration, you notice many of the thoughts and small triggers that build up towards those emotions. You also notice moments when you can change the interpretations in your mind, or not believe what you are thinking. "I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion"- Billie Jean King 
10. Positive  Action

Total winners take positive action in their business and with their friends and family. They are uplifting and motivating individuals who inspire the best from themselves and other. Positive action is when an employer takes steps to help or encourage certain groups of people with different needs, or who are disadvantaged in some way, access work or training. Positive action is lawful under the Equality Act. This worry and fear does nothing good for you, All it does is increase your stress and make it more likely that you miss the shot, mess up your project or fail to reach your goals. It is far better to stay optimistic and positive about the outcomes. See yourself making that shot as your take it. Know that you are doing the best you can on the project, and the boss will love it. See yourself reaching your goals, plan to avoid obstacles and visualize your success.