Do you know how it feels to win?

Vince Lombardi said: “Winning is not everything; it is the only thing”; a statement that he regretted later in his life and explained that actually what he meant was “Winning is not everything – but making the effort to win is.”

If I think about “Winning is not everything; it is the only thing” as a life-guiding phrase I would definitely not agree with it, but the standpoint for this article is winning as an experience and as a mental space – winning as a unique experience as a consequence of an optimal performance. During that enrapturing moment in a flow of winning it really feels that “winning is the only thing”.

During the time I wrote the book  “The Winning Helix – the art of learning and manifesting your true potential” I had a mentor with whom I could discuss everything the writing process brought into existence. We had very interesting discussions about my choices for terminology. Especially the words “winning” and “fighting spirit” irritated my mentor tremendously. She said that those words lead into bulldozing and harming other people. Though I explained my point of view and she hers, we never found an accord.

My mentor was absolutely of the opinion that the word “winning” could and should be replaced with “success”. I did not agree then and don’t agree now. In a race there can be many who succeed, but only one winner.

As a part of the research for the book I made an email inquiry which revealed that many people say they are not interested in winning and that they hate competition. It is hard to say whether this is true for everybody – someone might for fear of disappointment avoid situations where winning is an option.

The email inquiry revealed, however, that there are people who love to win and take part in events where they have a chance to win. The pursuit, the preparation and excitement culminating in a winning feeling, the “YES”, were the main reasons why these people wanted to experience winning. These people were also disappointed if they didn’t win, but many of them had learned how to deal with losing – better luck next time!

Some answers to the question “what is winning”:

• To be the first
• To be the best
• To reach a measurable goal
• To achieve a goal, be it state of mind, battle, competition
• To win oneself
• To win others
• To make things click
• To see connections between different things
• To learn
• To confront courageously a conflict and sort it out
• To negotiate a good deal
• To succeed with a challenge
• To exceed the own limits
• To conquer something that is difficult
• To grow as a human being

Many of these can be signs of success too, but I believe that the winning feeling is more than success, it is the feeling when a person can for a moment feel like a king and let the vanishing thought: “I am the only one in the world who did this” hover in his/her mind.

Winning is confronting ones own uniqueness and power and, for a moment, to feel really special. Those moments are the rosebuds of life which sweeten our memories with overpowering scent.

Vincent Lombardi also said:

“The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel, are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.”

I believe he did not  regret this statement. I believe that we all have the capacity to win and feel the uniqueness of our true beings.

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