Play to Win
Questions of the Week
What does a Playing-to-win schedule look like so you stay ahead of your goals every day?
Where might your decisions be more focused on avoiding loss versus playing-to-win?
What are the dominant emotions you experience most often?
How are you currently keeping score so you know that you are playing 'full out?'
Since we become what we think about most of the time, how are you ensuring that is growth versus scarcity focused?
What's the best way to ensure those in your inner-circle are also playing-to-win?
“If you want to play the game and win, you’ve got to play ‘full out.’ You’ve got to be willing to feel stupid, and you’ve got to be willing to try things that might not work – and if they don’t work, be willing to change your approach." - Tony Robbins
"I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win." - Michael Jordan
Daily Dose to Set Your Mind
Wake Up…
Set your Mind with written Intention/s for the day…(Preferably set the previous evening or better yet at the beginning of the week)
Take-Action…
Don’t Give Up…
Repeat…
Setting your mind sounds almost too easy. If it were so easy, then why are more antidepressants being prescribed to more people every year? How do the best in the world set their mind? Setting your mind is a simple concept, yet it’s not easy. In the book, ‘Excuse Me Your Life is Waiting,’ author Lynn Grabhorn says that it takes as little as 16 seconds for a thought to manifest into an energy. Now I’m not exactly sure on the scientific research behind that number, yet if you contemplate and focus on any one thing, how long before you start feeling the emotion around that topic. To show how quickly thoughts manifest into an energy or emotion, remember a time in your life where you were at your happiest. How long did it take for you to feel and experience the joy of that moment? The opposite is also true as you think of a moment in your life where you were most fearful, sad, lonely, or hurt… How long did it take for you to actually feel that emotion? The emotion we experience IS our energy and vice-versa.
To go even deeper on this topic, consider as you set your mind towards what you intend to accomplish, what emotional state are you in? When we set an intention when feeling optimistic versus setting an intention right after an argument with your significant other, I promise you will experience two very different outcomes. Since the first step in setting your mind is simply the act of waking up, what is the first emotion you experience? Where did that emotion originate? Having our intentions already planned brings with it the power of setting or resetting a new or renewed plan. The vast majority of the time the average person simply picks up where they left off from the night before. Resetting our energy each new day is easier when you are just grabbing your list of written goals rather than a mobile phone of chaos.
Another way to consider the power of our thoughts and the energy we create from the emotions is to look at winning versus losing. More importantly, let us explore the game of Playing-to-Win versus Playing Not-to-Lose. If you have ever watched a Football game, then you are already familiar with this concept. One team is playing all in, lights out football and runs up the score. Then as the clock runs down the winning team starts playing the ol' ‘Prevent’ defense, meaning they are focusing more on defense or avoiding a loss rather than offense and continuing to score. Anyone remember the Atlanta Falcons-New England Super Bowl?
"I think that at the start of a game, you're always playing to win, and then maybe if you're ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win." - Tom Brady
The quote above shows the words and emotions often connected with avoiding pain or playing not to lose. Anyone can do this exercise of self-discovering where you are thinking at any given moment. Our goal is to answer the simple question, are you playing to win or playing not to lose. Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center of the page. What are all the words you associate with winning? What do you think about that is actually working to avoid loss? Are you living your life to the left or right of the middle?
