If You Want to Win, Stop Focusing on Winning!

In this world, we see competitions everywhere. Some want to score good marks than others, while some want their status to be superior than others. We all are in this world to win. Nobody wants to lose.  Or even worse, nobody can accept defeat. Everyone of us are so enthusiastic about winning that we tend to loose  focus on the simple things that are essential parts of it’s process.

It may seem counter-intuitive that you can actually win more if you stop focusing on winning, but it’ true. The more you focus on winning the more you tend to be less productive and stressful. Instead, focus on things that are important for carrying out your work eg. if you are a salesperson focusing on the mandatory monthly target numbers can shake your confidence awhile.

However, find ways in which you are able to sell to everyone you have a talk with. Learn some great marketing skills, focus on your pitch and other person’s benefit too. Shifting one’s focus from the short-term goals to the long-term goals can increase your productivity rapidly and is instrumental in achieving the goal,too.

Coach Bill Walsh who is considered as the second best coach in NFL history (by ESPN) celebrates every well-executed play, whether or not the result is in his favor. He believes that it’s important to carry out a well executed play even if they lose the match. He is of the thinking that rather than focusing on winning , focusing on things that help to achieve that goal is relatively important. 

Same goes with businessmen and entrepreneurs. The more they focus on winning the more  stressful and uncertain the environment becomes. Focusing on winning does not essentially means lowering your standards or choosing goal which requires lesser effort. It’s about creating an environment around the execution part i.e the most important element of achieving your goal. Focusing on execution  essentially means  you are focusing on something that is in your control and not something that isn’t (winning). Execution is not something that you know from scratch.

It is a technique of taking up the right way for accomplishment of your goal. Ok, now how should you execute? Firstly, have a goal prepared in your head..Done? Good! Now make a succinct plan for it.( P.S-Keep in mind, that making only one plan may prove to be demotivating if at all it was the only plan you ever thought of. To avoid this, you should even be ready with a plan B or if necessary plan C as I have mentioned it in my earlier post,5 Tips to Never Miss a Deadline ) If your plan is ready and seems realistic, the work needed to be done in each and every section must be broken down into smaller works.

Breaking down a big chunk of work can be helpful as your productivity and focus on completing the task increases, as you work smarter and not harder. Once you have broken down tasks in every segment, it becomes easy to keep a track of your progress. 

Focusing on winning is not something we should look forward to as it cannot be controlled by anyone. However, the areas that are more important and things that can bring us nearer to the finish line(completion of a task/goal)  is where our focus should be at. Nevertheless,It’s your call whether to pursue such kind of an approach.

– Vatsal Doshi