Why Winning Isn't Enough

Everyone wants to win, right? Speak to any sportsperson, athlete or businessman. Hell speak to anyone who buys a lottery ticket or scratch card—everyone has this obsession with winning.

Don’t get me wrong, winning is great. It feels great to win, even if it does come from a hugely selfish part of ourselves. All I’m saying is that if you want to be great, and I mean really great, at anything, if you want to be super successful, at anything, you need to be striving for more than just winning.

Whatever you’re trying to win, whether it be a race, or life itself, if you’re playing just to win, then you’re playing along with thousands, no, millions of others who are playing to win. That makes your chances a hell of a lot smaller, and makes your life considerably more difficult.

Let’s think about it this way:

Does Usain Bolt train to "win" the 100m race?

Does Jeff Bezos of Amazon play to "win" at eCommerce?

If you’ve answered yes to these then read on—you’re about to learn something which could change your life, for the better. If you answered no, then you’re on the right track already.

You’ve got to want more than just a win.

You need to have a desire for more than just first place.

You’ve got to have a desire to be the absolute best at what you do.

I’m talking about dominating.

Dominating whatever field you may find yourself in.

Going back to the questions I asked above—Usain Bolt doesn’t train to "win" the 100m race. He trains to dominate the athletic sport of short distance sprinting. Jeff Bezos doesn’t play to "win" at eCommerce. He plays to dominate the eCommerce and retail space, worldwide, and more recently he has started working to dominate space.

These kinds of people and their huge success stories don’t come from trying to win or to come first; they come from trying to absolutely dominate every aspect of the field they find themselves in.

So how can this mindset shift change your life? Maybe you’re not an athlete or in business. Maybe you serve food at a restaurant; maybe you answer phones in a call centre.

You should be taking your current role and dominating it. Make sure you are the best food server in the restaurant you work in. Work your ass off to make sure you get more tips and more positive recommendations from customers than any other employee there. Make sure you get more recognition for your work from your managers and leaders than anyone else there.

Working in a call centre? Dealing with customer complaints? Make sure you have the most satisfied customers in that centre. Work to ensure that no customer leaves their conversation with you without being fully satisfied. Go above and beyond the line to make sure they are happy—and make damn sure your superiors know about your record.

Look, I get it. It can be easy when you’re in what you perceive to be a ‘low level’ job. But this isn’t about the job you have, or the role you’re in. This is about mindset. If you can’t get your mind to a position where you absolutely dominate your current role, how can you expect to dominate at the life of your dreams?

If you were given the role of your dreams, what makes you think you would dominate that role if you can’t dominate the role you are currently in?

There’s an old saying:

“Do more than you are paid to do and you will soon be paid for more than you do”

Learn to dominate at your current level, and watch what happens when you are singled out as the best in your organisation at what you do.

This mindset doesn’t just apply to your job either. When you learn to incorporate this mindset into every aspect of your life, and you aim to dominate every aspect of your life, your life will change immeasurably.

Work at it, every day. Be the best you possibly can. Learn from people who are where you want to be. Learn from people who have done what you want to do.

Learn and apply the principles they have followed, and watch your life change.