11 Mighty Ways of Highly Effective Teens - Think Win-Win
Do you constantly compare yourself with others? Do you feel intense jealousy every time you see others succeed? Or are you constantly letting other people walk all over you? If you answered ‘Yes’ to any of the above, you likely don’t have the right mindset to succeed in life. Developing the ability to think Win-Wincan help you and the people around you win big in life.
To be able to think Win-Win, you must first learn to overcome the other three limiting mindsets:
1.Win-Lose
In this mindset, you want to win by rooting for the other person to lose. This approach, which is far too common in our competitive world today, causes you to envy others’ success or use other people to get ahead. However, you are not only losing your peace of mind in the process, but setting yourself up for failure by not reaching your full potential. When I first started participating in Speech and Debate tournaments, as I went through the various rounds, I would often tell myself that all I needed to do was be better than the worst people in the room, and I would have a good chance of making it to semifinals. However, this thinking only hindered me, and my breakthroughs came only after implementing Win-Win strategies.
2.Lose-Win
The Lose-Win mindset involves letting others win, albeit at your own expense. Now, it’s alright to let your friend or sister win small arguments, like who will clean up after the dog. However, letting other people step all over you and win bigger issues without forming compromises only causes you to harbor resentment against them. Even caving in to peer pressure is a form of this behavior, as you let others gain control over your own actions. This not only hurts you, but also impacts your relationships.
3. Lose-Lose
“If I can’t win, then I’ll make sure no one else does”. This mindset is often the result of two Win-Lose personalities competing with each other to win at any cost. The end result is ugly, and no one benefits.
Once you identify yourself with any of these three harmful traits, you need to make a conscientious effort to adopt the most valuable and rewarding mindset:
4. Win-Win
With this mindset, you are genuinely wishing success for other people instead of conspiring against them. You lift others up, contributing to your own success as well.
Two factors that often come in the way are competition and comparison. Competition is prevalent in all areas, whether vying for a spot on the basketball team or applying to colleges. While that spirt fuels high performance, it is only healthy when you compete against yourself and don’t use it to compare with others to determine your self-worth.
One of my friends always complains how the students at her school compete with each other for the highest GPA or the most AP classes, and how this contributed to a toxic environment where everyone was constantly jealous of one another. This kind of obsession about being the smartest or prettiest or most athletic person in your school only hurts your confidence and mental health.
So how do you adopt the Win-Win mindset? Start small - congratulate the winning team when you lose a game, find a role model who embodies this idea and emulate their behavior, or prepare for a competition with your friend, even if they are your competitor. In the end, a Win-Win spirit is contagious, and it contributes to a high performing and amiable environment. Through these small habits, we can all grow to become the best version of ourselves!
Mallik Reddy is the Founder and Chief Coach of Leadership GYM, a free leadership and personaldevelopment program for high school students. The series ’11 Mighty Ways of Highly Effective Teens’, based on the book ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens’ by Sean Covey, explores 11 ways for teens toincorporate mega habits and principles into their life to become their best version.