DOES THE WINNER TAKE IT ALL? — Yes You Can Training

Photo by Meghan Hessler on Unsplash — *Photo by* *Meghan Hessler* on *Unsplash*

In sports all eyes are on the one who takes the shiniest medal home … the winner of the gold.

This undivided attention to the one and only exists everywhere. The premise of the Winner-Takes-It-All approach very simply is that the one who wins gets it all. The prize, the fame and the glory.

I agree. The winner takes it all.

But we all ARE winners.

When I was young(er) 😜 I competed at international level in Aerobic Gymnastics and this experience thought me everything I know about winning and losing.

I was taught to keep my eye on the big prize:

🎯 to make it to the World Championships and get a medal…

…but also to celebrate the small wins:

🎯 when we finished 5th in the Nationals instead of 8th like the year before,

🎯 our first national championship medal,

🎯 our first qualification to the Europeans

🎯 and then finally, the Silver Medal at the World Championships

This approach helped me celebrate small wins that others would have considered failures:

"Surely being 5th in the Nationals is not worthy of celebrating!"

"Never mind, you'll do better next time."

"Perhaps you should find another sport."- the Winner-Takes-It-All zealots would have scoffed.

Celebrating the small wins on the journey that takes you closer to achieving your big dream is vital to keeping your resilience and strength up; it's easy to get disheartened if you're only willing to give yourself credit for the Big Win and nothing else.

We can't all be Olympic champions. But we can most certainly all set ourselves achievable goals, and crown ourselves the "Champions-of-Our-Own-Lives" when we reach them.

For an amateur athlete the most ambitious goal might be qualifying for the regional championships. And when they do, it should be celebrated as if they've just won't the Olympic Games. Because in their lives, in their reality and on the scale of their goals, qualifying to the regional IS the ultimate achievement.

Please don't fall for the Winner-Takes-It-All rule. It has a tendency to only celebrate the 'official' champions, the athlete with the gold medal around their neck, the executive with the big car, the star student, the best selling artist or the social media influencer with the smoothest skin and the most beautiful smile.

Do winners take it all? Sure they do.

And you're one of them.

Take that olive wreath and pop it on your head at least once a day to celebrate your journey.