When we talk about a winning mentality, it is easy for the first thing we imagine to be an individualistic person whose main goal is to be more competitive than the rest. However, we can also understand this concept in a way that has nothing to do with greed: Being a winner can simply mean not giving up on achieving those personal goals that, if committed to effort, can be achieved
In other words, having a winning mentality means not being seduced by the many excuses that we often give ourselves to not leave our comfort zone.
For many years now we have known to what extent human beings are prone to deceive themselves without realizing it. Phenomena such as cognitive dissonance, for example, cause us to embrace unreasonable beliefs for the simple fact that they allow us to reduce the discomfort that appears when we notice contradictions in our way of thinking: I could have studied for the exam but I haven’t. Even though I want to pass, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter because that teacher was going to fail me anyway.
In the same way, heuristics, or the mental shortcuts of our mind, mean that in a matter of seconds we “fabricate” reasons to opt for a decision that does not seem very rational. For example, we want to lose body fat but the packaging of a pastry product full of refined sugar seduces us, we may believe that eating it will give us the energy necessary to work our muscles in the gym and improve our ability to burn fat later.
These are examples in which obedience to impulses and desires linked to the search for short-term pleasure are camouflaged under a layer of apparent rationality. Believe it or not, human beings can become very creative when it comes to giving up our long-term goals in favor of short-term goals. These small traps that you set for yourself are the main obstacle that a winning mentality must deal with: many of the goals that will give us the greatest benefits can only be achieved with persistence and effort, and we will never reach them without training in a certain self-discipline.
Building a winning mentality
To get used to maintaining a productive mindset, it is necessary to adopt new habits and customs. These are some of them.
1. Locating the objectives
First of all, It is necessary to know what our main objectives in life are or in a specific area of ​​this in which we feel that we are not making progress. To do this, it is good to write a list of possible goals, so that we do not forget them after thinking about them for the first time, and then do a filtering exercise, crossing out the least important ones until we leave no more than 4 or 5. This gives us It will allow us to know our priorities and better understand where we want to aim our development strategies in the medium and long term.
2. Detecting excuses
The second step to building a winning mentality is examine our own thoughts and learn to locate the excuses that keep us stuck It is advisable to do this without trying to be too lenient with ourselves and, if we have doubts, we can always ask the opinion of trusted people to have a second opinion.
This is the most difficult step, since it involves exposing ourselves to somewhat stressful situations but which bring us closer to our goals. To do this, it is good to find strategies to “force” ourselves to follow a sequence of very clear and specific actions; In this way we will not be able to justify ourselves with convenient excuses, because the guidelines of what we must do are so clear that there is no room for doubt as to whether we have done them or not.
Procrastination, or “I’ll do it tomorrow syndrome” is also a very common refuge among people stuck in their projects, and that is why it is necessary to prevent its appearance by making all that matters for a moment is to do what we feel we must. do. Likewise, analysis paralysis (discussed in this article) is frequently used to disguise inaction as productive activity.
4. Maintain the habit
Once we have broken the dynamic of immobility, it is much easier to continue moving forward but we still have to watch what we do so as not to give up on the project.
For this, it is good to think about the satisfaction that comes from having overcome previous difficulties, those that once made us so lazy or afraid, and to think that many small rewards like those await us. It is also necessary to continue programming action plans sequenced in very short and specific stages, so that at all times we know what needs to be done and we use all our energies to execute those actions.
Maintaining a winning mentality will allow us to be warned against the excuses we use to not leave the comfort zone and, at the same time, see how the objectives that we fantasized about in the past are getting closer or fulfilled, as long as they depend only on we.
That is why adopting this way of thinking by making it part of our daily lives It will have a very positive impact on both our self-esteem and the satisfaction generated through effort
