It's Always About Winning!!

A few months back there was a dance competition in my daughter's class. She did well, but of course, the other kids were great as well!

While she was happy for her performance and I was happy for she enjoyed the practice sessions, and to see her doing funny steps; she didn't get a place among the top 4 performers. When I told her about the results, she started crying. And as us parents have been doing for generations, I told her - "It's not about winning Akku. It's okay. There will be many other competitions and you can win them if you practice harder."

While her little brain is still too little for understanding these things, I still gave a pep talk and handed over a packet of Oreo biscuits (her favourite) to her. She grinned while her ugly milk teeth were peeking at me (She has caries from bottle feeding. I didn't know it was a thing until it happened to her.). She took that packet and ran away to enjoy them and I came back to my work seat.

As soon as I opened my laptop, I had a surprise for myself as well.

"We are sorry to inform you that your recent submissions have not been up to the mark as far as our writing standards are concerned. We are placing the last blog in the "redo section". This will be considered as your last attempt as editing blogs again and again increases our workload as well."

And, I was like - "What?? How can it happen? I mean I delivered such a great blog!!" At that time I was just like my daughter, the only difference being me not crying.

So, I did what I do in such situations - Made a superstrong chai and drank an entire mug! (Guilty pleasures for a foodie are this pathetic!)

Then I opened the website of my client, read some of their best blogs (reference shared by them) and then wrote that "redo" blog again, from scratch! I searched for stats I had never known existed, read market and business case studies my brother is so crazy about and checked out the mind-numbingly technical posts from Forbes, BCG and Harvard Business Review (they are good, but the people are stingy. Only 5 free blogs per month).

I wrote a crazily-loaded blog and sent that!

I didn't know what would the results be, and whether all that effort was going to amount to something. 2 full days went by and I didn't get any reply. I was sulking so bad that even my husband noticed (he doesn't give much attention to such things, as he believes - "jab dard hoga, to koi bata hi dega"). I was just about to shoot a scathing reply to his question - "koi problem hai kya?", when my phone dinged and I saw the golden words - "The blog is approved. Keep following the same pattern for the rest of the blogs."

And let me tell you - Damn, I smiled and gave him a proud smirk! He didn't think much of the entire episode and slept. I was unable to sleep. I read and re-read and re-re-read my beloved blog again and again until I felt sleepy too.

At that time I realized - Winning is important. There is no sweeter joy than winning and the exhilarating feeling it gives is unbeatable. There is no better way to pat your self-worth and that little "ego" (come on, we all have that) than a winning shot. In fact, it's always about winning!

Sulking, crying, feeling demoralized and getting your insides damaged are not the right reactions when you fail. But, firing up, giving yourself a nudge to perform better and try new things until you get that winning shot is just the right solution.

The next day, when Akku was sitting in my lap, I told her - It's okay to not win once, but it's not okay to never win. Winning keeps you going forward. So, let's prepare for the next competition well ahead of time and find out what does it feel like to win.

I knew yet again, that she won't be able to process all this, but still, I had to tell her something that life teaches you harshly - It's always about winning and Winning Matters! Not because we have to gloat in front of others, but because when we win, our self-worth gets a boost and that is the most reliable support we have, we will ever have!!

So, dear readers, keep on winning, after each win and after each loss!!