our unhealthy obsession with winning

an interesting article from harvard business review regarding our obsession with winning (my emphasis at the end):

… the way we've defined winning makes it attainable only for a tiny percentage of people, and even then demands a kind of single-minded focus that can create a narrow and limited life.

How can we redefine winning so there are more ways to do it, and it's more satisfying? A few suggestions:

1. Winners are people who consistently invest effort, persevere, and keep getting better at whatever it is they do — regardless of whether they win anything.
2. Winners have goals, which provide direction and motivation, but recognize that the ongoing satisfaction comes from the everyday experience of moving towards any given goal.
3. Winners are people who aren't afraid to lose — and they learn and grow from it. "I missed more than 9000 shots in my career," says Michael Jordan. "26 times I was trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
4. Winners use their skills not just to build their own value, but also to add value in the world — to give back and pay forward. Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi both won the same number of Grand Slam tournaments during their careers. Connors invested in casinos after he retired from tennis. Agassi invested in building a charitable foundation, a charter school, and a residence for abused and neglected children in Las Vegas. For my money, only one of them is a real winner.

What winners recognize, above all, is that the ultimate goal is never to vanquish an opponent or to prove something to others, but rather to more fully realize their own potential, whatever that may be.