Are You A Quitter Or A Winner?

My experience is that most people quit on themselves. We get all excited about a project or task, get to the difficult or tedious part and quit. When you quit on yourself, it isn't just you that is affected. I now realize that the times in the past that I quit on myself have negatively that has impacted my life and the lives of my family and friends.

Do you run away from the challenges in your life or do you face them head on and say “bring it on”. Unfortunately many people have been taught to make decisions based on fear, it is their default. What is your default? I have had the privilege of entering a totally new environment in my mid 30’s, I learned how to scuba dive. Very shortly after I was certified I took a diving holiday to the Caribbean. Before my first dive I was informed that barracuda run/swim away from scuba divers, they are more afraid of us than we are of them. On my first dive I was able to put that to the test. There was the barracuda… I hesitated for a moment…decided to listen to what the dive master told me…swam toward the barracuda and sure enough he turned around and swam away. It was an awesome experience and I was able to prove to myself that sometimes my fear is all in my head. Challenging my fear was very powerful and eye opening.

An example where most of us would never quit; have you ever lost your car keys? If you have, did you ever give up looking for them? My belief would be probably not! We may get a little frantic and involve everyone we can in the search, but we keep looking until we find them.

Three actions have assisted me in becoming more of a winner than a quitter.

1) Look and act like a winner

2) Practice, practice, practice

3) Look at who you hang out with – do they quit?

1. Look and Act Like a Winner

Do – Be – Have… If we desire to change our results we must change what we do. For me the first step was to “do” as much as I could toward the results that I wanted. One change that I made quite quickly was “looking like a winner”. For me this involved how I “wrapped the package” to quote Joel Bauer. I became aware of my posture, how I stood, the way I walked and the look on my face. I started by standing up straighter, walking with purpose and confidence (even if I didn’t feel like it), and smiling more often. After a while all of these actions became habits. I had realized that if I wanted to be a winner that no one else would do it for me. I decided to “just do it” for myself.

“Quitters never win and winners never quit” Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi

2. Practice, practice, practice

My strategic business coach John Di Lemme tells me that “Perfect practice makes perfect”. Many people have the belief that they are going to be able to do something perfect on the first attempt. I used to be one of them! Occasionally this will happen but it is rare. A great example is learning how to ride a bicycle, how do you fare? Were you able to just jump on that bicycle and RIDE? Probably not. However because we decided that we were going to learn and enjoy the benefits of riding the bicycle we practiced, practiced and practiced some more. Once we mastered the basics we continued on and learned how to do some tricks, like riding with our hands off the handle bars.

Personally I never mastered that one because after I fell and hurt myself a couple of times I quit. I told myself that I didn’t need to learn that anyway! To the best of my recollection that was the beginning of my quitting habit. I conquered the basics and never developed the expert level skill. It took me many years to recognize what I was doing. Now I keep “taking my hands off the handle bars” and develop skills to the expert level in the areas where I have a passion to do so. Can you pinpoint where you began to develop the habit of quitting? Send me an email, tell me the story, you will find my email address below. Sharing the story assists in changing the habit, plus it will also assist in recognizing where you quit in other areas of your life.

People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most people succeed because they are determined to. George E Allen

3. Look at who you hang out with – do they quit?
One of the ways you can predict your own future is by looking at who you associate with. If you are “hangin” with people who are going nowhere then you will go nowhere too. I used to smoke, drink excessively and party right along with all my friends. My life was not what I wanted it to be, not what I had dreamed of when I was growing up. With that lifestyle comes a limited ability to achieve results as I was not feeding myself physically or mentally with the right kind of “food” in order to prosper in any area of my life.

I realized I was fitting perfectly into Einstein’s definition of insanity which is “to continue doing the same thing, and expect different results”. I started to make some tough decisions. I changed who I associated with, through various means, because it was not always my decision. When I quit smoking and going to parties all the time my friends of the time quit calling, I was no longer "fun to be with”. When I started thinking differently and creating the habit of personal development, other friends wanted to know why I was wasting my time on “that stuff”. I found that we no longer had the same desires. My desires for my life had changed to the point where I had to move on. Today I hang out with very different people and my life reflects that, a change I am very happy that I made.

The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it better. Barbara Pletcher

Are you ready to become a winner in your life? Are you ready to make the decision to “feed” yourself with the actions and behaviors you know you need to do? Go to my website, listed below, enter your name and phone number and let’s find out if you qualify to join my team of champion winners.