How to Win

How to Win

We are so interesting, us people. We love making rules, then we love to bend, or break those rules. We love to compete with each other, or we hate it and avoid it at all costs. We love to have power over each other, or to be overpowered. We praise, extol, and laud the ones who end up at the top, often without regard for how or why they got there. And sometimes we mock and jape at the ones who didn’t.

So with all that stuff going on inside us, in our groups and families and communities, it’s small wonder that we have a lot going on around the notion of winning and being a winner.

I’ve watched people who valued the laurels so much that they were willing to dump friends and hurt loved ones, and themselves, to get them. Others who would sabotage themselves, wreaking havoc around them,  to avoid winning.

Wow.

Life is so hard when we let the outside dictate how we think about ourselves. One of my old favorite bad creative questions was, “Why am I such a loser?” Yikes.

I could ask that question a hundred times a day, get a hundred different horrible answers, and never notice it. Insidious! I would feel awful, not even want to try at anything. I felt like the whole point of my communities was to make me feel bad about myself. And if I did well, it was either a fluke, or not well enough. I lived in a very unpleasant place.

It’s all in how we look at it. So simple, so challenging. It’s the superpower of my point of view.

Some of us tighten up and fight that loser feeling by working our poor little bottoms off to prove that we are winners. We run races, strive for the top, put our names up for all the awards and honors we can find, and, even though we may win and win and win, we find that we still don’t feel like a winner, we still can’t be convinced.

How do I feel when I am a winner? How else do I feel when I am a winner? What makes me a winner?

When I go inside with Creative Questions like those, and really apply them, I am a winner. I see wonderful, strong reasons why I am a winner, and I feel different out in the world. It’s like a miracle. I see that I cannot be made to feel winner-y from the outside in, but that I need to own it from the inside out.

When I redefine winning as achieving my best self, I can be a winner all the time. When I challenge me to do my best, I can accomplish amazing things, and I can feel satisfied with my accomplishments. And If I want, I can always make up my own certificates or trophies, and I can enjoy celebrating my successes with my loved ones. Or even by myself.

Using my good Creative Questions will make a big difference. So will relaxing. Unclenching the need to beat others, or to let others beat us. Softening, doing our best rather than striving for perfection.  In my natural life, I am always a winner.

How have I changed from feeling like a sucky loser to knowing I win whenever I do my best?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 12242013

Why do I choose to share this contemplation? ;)