WINNING in Life

Last week, I wished you a week of starting each day with a grateful heart. I hope you either used the list I posted or you came up with your own action list. Did you agree you’d commit to a 21-day action plan to change your occasional actions into life time habits beginning with Gratitude?

I addition, I hope you’ve been able to dedicate some of your time to reading a new book each month. That’s a wonderful way to continuously learn and grow!

Recently, I came across an article by Chris Widener “Insights to Influence.” There were many points which resonated with me, and I want to share, in my blogs, for the next two weeks.

I think we’d all agree that we’d like to be considered a winner rather than a loser in life. That begs the question, “What does it mean to win in life?” Going to sporting events it’s easy to define a winner or loser just by the score. Even playing Old Maid, there’s a winner or a loser. Deciding what it means to win in life is much more challenging!

Defining what it means to win in life isn’t quite as easy. Would you agree? For some, winning may be the accumulation of money and possessions. Others it might be longevity or their health or even what they consider a happy family. For my own thinking, I can’t focus on just one area. It seems to me that to succeed or win in life includes several areas.

According to Widener, “To truly win, to be a success, is not to overachieve in one area, but to maintain balanced achievement in all areas of life.” We’ve all seen the mega stars making multiple millions yet have addiction issues. Or we see those with a title in a large corporation making lots of money yet have no time for their family.

Where are you in your life? Do you feel you have things in balance or are you more focused in one area?

Obviously, we can’t answer the question if we haven’t taken time to DEFINE what our definition of “winning in life” means to us personally. As you begin, Chris Widener recommends we focus on three main areas: Body, Soul, and Spirit.

For this “assignment,” consider Body as the connection with the physical world; physical health, financial health, family, work, and relationships. How would you define winning in these areas?

Consider Soul which deals with emotions, will, and intellect. In other words, it’s our thoughts, ideas, and attitudes.

Consider Spirit as the part of us that transcends life – the part that communes with God. Inner peace. Zig Ziglar said, “Money will buy me a house, but not a home; a bed, but not a good night’s sleep.”

“What does winning in life mean to you?” is a deep question and one that takes a committed time of quiet and reflection to really determine your beliefs. Before we go into the second step, I’m stopping here for this week. Yes, we have the holidays coming up and lots of things going on yet, this is also one of the best times for this reflection. It’s time we spend with family, it usually involves our finances, and we are continually challenged with our priorities. In addition, we are only about 7 weeks away from the end of 2017. Now is a great time to reflect over the past 10 months and reflection on whether or not we’ve been able to make 2017 different than 2018.

Happy Thanksgiving, and I wish you a week of reflection on the question,

“What does winning in life mean to you?”