7 Qualities that Make You a Winner

Everyone wants to be a winner but does everyone have what needs to be one. We might not possess a lot of things from the time we cry for the first time, but with time we learn through teachings and experiences. Some skills are worth having just to survive, and some are needed to succeed.

Being a winner comes from within. The more you work on yourself, the more you will learn how to use yourself in the most efficient manner. To be a winner, you need a winner mindset, which doesn’t come from doubting yourself. Here are 7 qualities you need to be a winner in your life and business.

1. Self-discipline

This is probably one of the most underrated and difficult quality to posses because it is not a skill you can have from birth. You might be raised with discipline, but self-discipline is something winners acquire through hard work and application.

It is not easy to change long acquired hurting habits, neither is it easy to ignore the constant distraction life keeps on throwing at you, but winners conquer this, way before actually becoming successful at their craft.

2. Not afraid to fail

Fear of failing is a common phenomenon; even the perennial winners go through this. What do they do differently you ask? Well, they fail. Failing early can be great for your life and career; it teaches you what not to do and how to handle difficult situations and when you need to take up responsibility.

People who have got it wrong many times and persist possibly know a lot more than people who had natural talents. Former United States Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy summed it up nicely by saying, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Fear, in general, makes us doubt ourselves, but as Jack Canfield righty said, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

3. Persistence

“Persist, persist, and persist” is what we are told by the greats of every field. It is a given really; every man on the quest for success knows that he needs to persist in order to get what he wants. What stops us then? What makes us not follow this, simple yet difficult to execute, strategy?

Well, you can blame it on the impatience and restlessness of the human mind. Keeping on hoping for different things if something doesn’t work out and giving up when we see even a slight chance of our hard work going to waste comes naturally to most of us. Fighting this urge is necessary to achieve big and it is certainly not easy. Winners master to persist. It is a cliche that we can only see the glitters and confetti when someone has achieved great heights but rarely can anyone fathom the hard work put in to get there.

4. Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses

Everyone has weaknesses, and the sooner you identify and acknowledge them, the better. What defines a winner is their unmatched mental strength to know what they can do better than most people and where they lack behind. They plan their battles knowing about themselves; they maximize their strengths and minimize the impact that their weaknesses have on their craft.

Winners keep on improving themselves and believe every day is a learning process and every person they meet can be a teacher. Japanese author Susaku Endo puts it into perspective by saying,  “Every weakness contains within itself a strength.”

6. Belief in your dreams

As the old saying goes, “You need to believe in your own dreams for others to start believing.” This is a fundamental mindset of an achiever. When no one believes in you, everyone writes you off; it’s you who has to believe in your own potential. No one can know you better than yourself.

In a lot of competitive sports when there is a clear underdog, experts usually say that matches are won and lost in the head and not on the field. Some extract pleasure out of having themselves against the wall and some drop their weapons. If you give your best even while knowing there are better chances of the opposition winning you have a slim chance of getting over the line, although, if you give up in your mind, there are no chances of you winning.

7. A never-say-die attitude

Failure is a part of life, it is a cliche, but how someone copes with it defines how they move ahead in life. Failure can be heartbreaking and can make you give up your dreams, but that is where most people leave the race.

Winners pull themselves through the hard times and learn from their mistakes, getting stronger with every mistake. A mistake is nothing but one way that doesn’t work, and if you know that well you won’t make that mistake over again. Winners never give up, their calmness under pressure and temperament ride them through the rough patches. How you deal with it is important.