Last week I went to pick up Ally. When I arrived at her school, I saw her running on the field. She was running so fast and hard and had the biggest look of determination on her face. When she recognized me, she looked up and started to charge towards me. Shortly before running into me she stopped and threw up her hands and said...
"Mommy I'm a winner."
My heart beamed. I smiled and said back to her emphatically, "Yes you are baby. You're my winner."
Ally asked, "Mommy you know what it takes to win?" "What's that," I asked.
"It's simple. Mommy you just have to work hard, improve and never give up." She went on to say it again...
"Never ever give up."
There you have it. A child's formula for winning. Except is isn't simple. Working hard is long, grueling, and at times frustrating. If it were easy everyone would be doing it, right? Learning to improve isn't easy either. We are creatures of habit. Change and improvement takes focus, discipline and the will to see it through.
While people can work hard, improvement is where many people fall off the wagon. People who do improve aren't afraid to take feedback, own it and action it into progress.
And never giving up is the hardest part. Giving up is easy.
Why does this formula seem so simple to Ally? A mere 3.5 years old, she hasn't been tainted by our world. She hasn't faced adversity. Her imagination and creativity is left to run wild. Her confidence is sky-high. She runs about knowing and proclaiming she's a winner.
She is.
As we grow older, it gets harder to remove the biases and filters we put in the way of our success. Our experiences and beliefs shape our thinking, beliefs and or fears in winning. We are what we tell ourselves.
