The Winning Habit

The winning habit

Introduction

Everyone wants to win, succeed, and feel proud they could achieve something. Everyone, therefore, approaches a task with the objective of accomplishment and winning, but, many a time things and circumstances are not favorable to us and though one approaches the problem in the right spirit, things just don’t happen – happen the way we expect. Here are some lessons to be learnt from such happenings.

Three important tips

I am borrowing the tips from Paulo Coelho to explain this situation. He says in his book Manuscript found in Accra, the following

Wait patiently for the right moment to act

Don’t let the next opportunity slip by you

Take pride in your scars.

Patience

When things don’t favor us, the best thing is to keep cool and adopt a patient attitude. One must get comfort from the fact that It is not his fault, try as one did. When soldiers find that their gun shots are not hitting the target, what do they do? They don’t retreat, they don’t feel dejected, they don’t feel defeated. They only think that this time it was a miss. Trained as they are to fight, they feel: ‘does this prevent us in making more attempts?’ Definitely not. On the contrary, they try to aim better and repeat the act, with more confidence. It may just happen that this time also the shot does not hit the target. Never mind, he must be feeling himself, that the advantage is not is his favor. All he has to do is to wait for the right moment to strike. And if one works with such patience the right moment will just come. And, they score a victory.

Grab the next opportunity

In order to succeed, the next opportunity should not, therefore be allowed to slip by. One has to be more concerned, more conscious to make use of the next opportunity.
And, may be approach the problem in a different way. For, opportunities will arise whether you want or not.

Take pride in your scars

The failures often appear as scars. But rather than getting disappointed and defeated, the experience of the failed attempts make one ponder over a new plan, or a totally different strategy. Thus, rather than feeling bad, one should be able to take pride in the scars. Then, the very scars may turn out to be medals. If you treat the scars left by failures as medals, you get the courage to nullify the effect of such scars. Talking of scars, there is a mention in the ‘Naarayaneeyam’ (treatise on Lord Krishna) that Sage Bhrigu kicked in the chest of Lord Krishna, who said ‘may the scar left by your foot be an alankaram(decoration)for my chest for ever’ , and thus Krishna’s chest shows a scar known as ‘sreevalsam’.

Conclusion

To quote Paulo Coelho again, ‘the day will come when Fate knocks on our door. It might be the gentle tapping of the Angel of Good Fortune or the unmistakable rat-a-tat of the Unwanted Visitor’ which must be welcomed.

The above lessons should almost certainly make you stronger to fight with fresh energy and enthusiasm and WIN. And, you have finally learnt to make a winning habit.