Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
Vincent Lombardi
What is extracted and quoted very widely from that is “WINNING IS A HABIT”. When words are removed from their context, there is potential for them to be misunderstood. To understand why it is NOT a habit, one must understand what is a habit.
What is a habit?
The definition of the word habit is a settled tendency or usual manner of behaviour.
You may be aware of the Model of Conscious Competence.
As per the model, the highest level of competence is considered when a person is able to perform without having to make any conscious effort. It has become second nature and requires minimal cognitive effort.
When anything becomes a habit, one instinctively behaves and takes action that is correct. Let us understand habit in a slightly different context such as driving a car. On a busy road, with some unruly drivers around, a person can safely navigate through it while listening to music or in many instances, even as it is not the best thing to do, while talking to someone else on the cell phone. Here the attention to driving is primarily subconscious. That is the condition where driving has become a habit.
If it is a habit one exhibits subconscious action that has been programmed into the mind with routine practice. It is has become and all time thing. It is a passive action by nature.
The same can be said for more competitive scenarios such as businesses or games as well. Once in a leadership position due to a competitive edge one may be able to enjoy the fruits of success and can keep winning with significantly consistent and possibly lower effort. However we all know that this is very temporary. In reality one is required to be agile and in this fast changing world even innovative with actions aligned with a vision to keep winning. That is certainly NOT a habitual action which is passive. That is serious and active efforts to survive and win in this competitive world.
What Vincent really means is one of the other meanings of habit which is “addictive”. One must be addicted to winning. Once addicted you will be driven to actively work towards making sure that you keep winning. You derive so much joy from winning that you need no motivation or triggers for the necessary effort and action. That is evoked and occurs naturally.
In a competitive scenario, “Make winning a habit” really means “Making winning (appear as) as habit”. Build a strong position and strength that appear hard to challenge and beat.
Focus on the Pattern and not on the Action
Constant deliberate practice in a game for various skills and techniques will lead to achievement of a high level of competence. However the games are not won by the technical skills alone. Every game is a different and unique scenario. Your opponents are different, with the same team, the player in the game may be different, playing conditions may be different, conditions of your own team can be different. There are too many variables. A winning strategy is born out of a pattern of thinking that assesses all of these varying conditions and producing a strategy that places you and team in winning position.
It is this conscious action of taking each game or scenario as unique and building a fail-safe plan to deal with it is behind the success. It is active not passive like habits are. It appears like a habit but it is not.
The record of winning again and again that gets considered as a habit is not easy to maintain. It requires persistent effort. Winning is not a result of a particular technical skill or unconscious action wherein one just has to walk into the court and play the game to win it.
Remember that your opponents, your competitors are having their own conscious pattern of action to win and your position is always at risk. You can survive and grow and maintain this perception of habit with “constant action”.
If you are trapped into believing that winning has become your habit, it will lead to complacence and unreasonable level of self-confidence.
Note that highly successful individuals or teams are very good at self-assessment of their chances of winning or expected actual performance. The difference between low and high achievers is their ability to see their own shortcomings. They possess metacognitive skills. Possessing metacognitive skills can be understood as being more conscious, reflective, and aware of one’s capabilities and performance in a certain scenario.
This pattern of conscious thinking and reflection on each unique scenario and adapting action is what makes winners.
Winning requires disciplined and persistent effort. It can be made to appear as a habit to others. But it is NOT a habit.