Winning is great… but it's just not normal!

If you're into endurance sport, chances are you're an A-type individual. Driven, focused, pretty competitive. Folk like us need to understand that winning is wonderful… but it's far from normal. Here's why it's a lesson worth learning.

In any race, in any scenario, and in any tussle for glory, there can only ever be one winner. Whether it's a battle between two people, or 2,000 people, only one single person will emerge victorious.

When we look at it like that, we begin to realise just how unusual winning truly is. 

It's fantastic, and exciting, and a very worthy goal. In fact, it's the goal that has kept sport, and sportsmanship, alive for centuries. But it's not the norm.

In fact, most athletes will go through their entire sporting career without knowing the heady euphoria of a win. Does that mean they are a failure? That they should give up, stop training, find a lesser goal? I don't think so. It just means they are elite, but not extraordinary. That they try hard, but aren't blessed with luck. That they do everything right, but miss out on the twists and turns of good fortune on race day.

So what exactly does winning require?

Winning demands hard work, talent, genetics and extraordinary action. To win - to even be in with a shot of wining - you have to do the unusual. You can't be part of the pack. You have to be prepared to stand out, to go the extra mile, to put yourself out there and act in different ways. Your daily habits, your mindset, your attitude and even your self-belief have to be different to the rest.

Winners have a certain set of values which they prioritise and use to guide their lives. These values filter down into areas of their life beyond sport, training, nutrition and recovery. A winner's values can be seen in their work ethic, their business relationships, their family dynamics, their home set up, even in the way in which they act within groups.

It's no surprise that winners value success over and above everything else. Whatever their goal is, they want it. They dream about it, they think about it, they live and breathe it. They may not be truely selfish, but they are usually self-centred. They look after their own interests, because they know that's what needs to happen if they are going to get the job done.

And they work on it. They don't just leave their dreams and goals simmering. They actively work on stoking the fires of focus, drive and determination. Winners usually do visualisation work, use mantras, employ visual or tactile aids to constantly check in with the touchstone of their goal. 

All of that is not to say that you have to act like a winner. There's nothing wrong with wanting to take part in sport to improve your health, to lose weight, to inspire your children or to have fun. 

But, if you want to be in with a shot of winning, you have to think, act, and live like a winner.