Introduction

If you ever want to play a game, be it any game, play it by attacking.

What do I mean by a game?

A game is anything which requires competing with others, it can be a game of cricket, football,basketball, or it can be a your academic year at college,school,office, since it requires performing which impacts many people, be in the attack position, perpetually.

What I mean by attack?

I mean, you can not be casual, you can not tell yourself “it’s just a game”, “I’m playing to enjoy” or whatever lame excuses you tell yourself when are loosing to others, if you are in the game, you have to be the best, right from the start.

This has a lot to do with your subconcious mind than you can imagine. If you start a game casually, you’ll be prepared to loose, because you already have an execuse to feed yourself in case that happens. That way you are indirectly telling your subsconcious mind that it is okay to loose, I might loose, etc. The moment you keep telling your subconcious mind so, your reality becomes so. Our subconcious mind is very passive yet powerful, if you tell your subconcious mind that you will loose, you will eventually loose, but you say I will win, there is nothing that can stop you from winning. Whatever you tell your subconcious mind, you become so. A popular proverb says, every person has a warrior inside which listens to what you say, and everytime you insult yourself, the warrior gets weakened. Negative talk is the root all failure.
If you start performing poorly from the begining, you will eventually loose all your confidence and lack of confidence in what you do can be very demotivating and depressing, hence you will stop showing up and eventually loose out entirely. Hence the drame that started with you telling yourself that it is fine to loose, costed you your peace of mind, self confidence and more importantly the belief that you can do something. So you’re planning to do something, be it preparing for a competitive exam, playing badminton at a national level if can not allow yourself to loose, you have to win win win, for whatever cost it takes, because it’s not about loosing, it’s about the mentality which makes you think if it ok not be good, and this very mentality will make you a looser in every field.
As Charles Bukowski rightly said “If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”

How to win

The only way you can win at almost anything, is the ability to work hard, work more than anyone else, even if by a very small margin. You don’t need to start out perfectly, you just need to start, and do it consistently, everyday. With each passing day, you will realise where you were doing that one thing wrong, how can a particular aspect be improved, network with right minded people how to become better. The more you start getting into it, you’ll realize there are people who you need to talk to and who wants to talk to you, because unlike others you are here to win. But do realize, as you keep climbing you the number of people you are going to compete with are going to get lessened, but the toughness of the competition will be sky-high. Now just showig up everyday won’t matter, what matters is how much are getting better than yesterday, what small small tweaks are you able to make, every small optimization matters at this level. Eventually, you are in top x % in this game and there is no feeling better than that. Humans are actually happier when they push themselves to uncomfortable situation, work their ass off, grind, and not when they are chilling out in the beach, having small talk with friends, etc. Definitely, the later parts are fun, but only when you are grinding as well. It is when you are working heavily at something, that travelling at exotic places will be fun, otherwise it is just a random chore. Another point to kept in mind while you are ensuring wins is to stay humble. If you don’t remain humble while you’re winning, you are ought to attract negative vibes, you can be harmful in many ways. So stay humble while winning big.
Another major point to keep in mind is, as Scott Adams says, Success fuels passion, more than passion fuels success. What this means is, don’t keep freting about what your passion is in order to work hard at it, it is very very rare to realize at the very beginning of anything that whether it is your passion or not, it is only after first few wins that it becomes your passion. Hence, ensuring wins at the early stage is very crucial to the fact that whether you will feel like working more at it or not, which will eventually decide your success in that game.