Go Win or Go Home

There's a way we play to win and there is a way we play for a loss, in both cases we are hardly disappointed.

One may ask "how do we play for a win or for a loss?", valid question.

Every game has their rules and unless we play by the specific rules of a particular game we are not likely to win.

As a man thinks:

If you think like a loser, you are not likely going to play like a winner. If you don't play like a winner how are you going to win? You might win once with that kind of thinking but you can never sustain winning with a loser's thinking. Don't think like a loser if you know you are not. Who is anyway? Winning starts from home, from the heart.

Play by the rules:

It is not enough to participate in a game, there is need to participate correctly. A game will not be correct without a set of rules guiding its play, who knows of any game whose only rule is that there are no rules? Feel free to leave a comment below. 

That a game has rules and that every player played by the rules do not make everyone a winner, so the obvious is that it takes more than playing by the rules of a game to win the game. While you need to play by the rule of the game you need more than that to win the game and to win every time.

Play by the rules of THE game.

Each game has its rules. To win at a game, you must know its rules. This is understanding of the game. This is one of the basic requirement to win a particular game. This understanding does not guarantee winning but it helps build confidence that is a form of winning at home. This is like saying you are at home in a game.

Play by the rules of YOUR game.

You should have a game that is your game. If you will be a winner at the game, you must own the game. Make the game yours and make its rules yours. Play the game like you set the rules. If you do, there are times breaking the rules will still not count against you. "The left hand of god" comes to mind. This will not be the case for you, if you have not possessed the game. Let THE game be YOUR game and its rules will be your rules.

It is not every game That you can own. Every game will not be your game, but THE game you will consistently win will be the game that has become YOUR game.

Play by the rules of YOUR LIFE.

Formal education has a way of putting everyone into common molds, but sadly the reality of life is that we are not common. We are similar but not the same. Your life is not mine, I play like a loser when I try to live your life and you play like a loser when you try to live mine. Every child was born a winner, we grow up to be otherwise. 

Growing up may be one of the greatest paradox in life: We are meant to grow into more winning but we somehow find ways to outgrow winning that we start losing.

Because we are similar, there are some rules that are common to us all, but there are rules that are specific for YOUR LIFE. Do you ask for examples? I am sorry, I won't give you any. How do you expect I give you billions of 'YOUR LIFE'-specific examples? We discover our lives and we learn the rules, in that order. 

If my life is meant for flying, I must not engage the rules of driving if I must keep flying. If I must be driving, I cannot assume flying routes as the course for my life.

Winning at Home

I like professional soccer, many people can relate and understand its dynamics. There are home and away matches and there is what is known as the "home advantages". At home, you have your fans in more numbers than the visitors, you are familiar with the weather and the crowd, you are not jet-lagged and you are also familiar with the turf and some other fine details that go into the winning psychology mix.

The sad reality is that not every match played at home is won. When this happens, it makes the away match more difficult to win and the odds are raised against winning.

Before home matches are played, there is need to win at home. This is what I mean: there is a home match before the home match and the primary home match must be won before the home or away match can be won. The primary home match is therefore the match within the mind.

The reasons we lose is because we play like losers and the reason we play like losers is because we think we are losers.

The truth actually is that we are winners and we have always been winners until we started thinking otherwise. We have been second guessed and have been second guessing ourselves to the point that we no longer believe in the winning us.

The winning us is not us actually, we lost that a long time ago. The winning us is God in us. God must be at home in us and we at home with God to keep winning.

Every time you go out and you lose, assume you left God at home. Because if God be for us who can be against us? Take note that the home is the home of your heart and not the flat your body lives in.

You must be winning at home to win both the home and away matches of your life. 

Winning is no longer optional, so go win or go home, but never play for a loss. If you have lost any home or away match, you probably left God at home, so go home. That's not you? You have been on a winning streak home and away, well there is room at home, go home too.

NOTE: This article was originally written for a now defunct website: www dot sundaygist dot com.