You Can Win a Race Only if You Participate in It

If you fail to win, you can try again, but if you fail to participate you would never stand a chance

A brilliant idea strikes you. Your mind jumps from one vision to another, you keep daydreaming, and you see yourself flawlessly doing everything until the idea becomes a success.

But then the reality strikes and you feel restrained by your life circumstances.

People think of doing something that will change their life. They want to start a new business, write a book, adopt a healthy lifestyle, find the love of their lives, or change their habits to become more mindful.

People keep thinking and imagining how to start what they want to do. They spend some money and even begin their project in a very cautious way — often afraid of failure.

When something challenging comes up, they are quick to leave the field and give up. Later, they would tell their story how they failed to achieve what they wanted. Quitting at the first sign of trouble is not failure — it is just giving up on your dream.

Princeton University Physicist John Wheeler said, ‘We live in a participatory universe.’ We can observe and understand only by attentively participating in what we love to do in our lives. Participation brings us out of our comfort zones.

Some people want to quit their job and start working on their dream. There are writers, actors, athletes, and entrepreneurs who would not have achieved success if they did not dare to participate in competitions, auditions, and meetings that ultimately changed their lives.

We live in a society that is filled with information and motivation to follow our dreams. Very few of us, however, find the courage to participate in the race for the top position — the journey to reach our goals helps us to grow to our potential.

There is always room at the top — all of us know that. Failure is an option for those who participate in the race for the top slot. But those who do not take part, admit defeat even before the journey begins.

Participation is the first step on the staircase that leads to the top.

Most of the time, we are trying hard to become successful at our jobs or trying to convince our loved ones that we are worthy of their love. By participating in the race to succeed in what we love to do, we accept the challenge, and our challenging work begins.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting starting is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”~ Mark Twain

When you invest your time, emotions, and work to reach your dreams, you start learning the necessary skills. Once you have started participating in your selected activity, you start looking for insights from experts that can help you succeed and transform your mindset.

Participation is the foundation of all future efforts to succeed. You should expect success only after some smart and consistent work. The feeling that you have won is related not only to your social relationships, it is also related to your health and wellbeing as well.

Ian Robertson is a Professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. He says in his book, “The Winner Effect,” that the reason it’s so much fun to win is largely chemical. “Winning increases testosterone, which in turn increases the chemical messenger dopamine, and when that dopamine hits the reward network in the brain, it makes us feel better.”

By merely talking about your ideas with your spouse or juggling them in your head, you are not doing anything. Half-hearted attempts cannot be counted as attempts at all — and the resulting failure cannot be reckoned as a failure.

These people start writing a novel after coming back from office and give up after three months because most of the new authors are not published by big publishers or don’t make big money.

Yet, if you wish to win a race — whatever you are dreaming to achieve — you first need to participate in that activity. By jumping from one idea to another brilliant idea, you’d not only be mentally fatigued, but you’d not start doing what you need to do.

To become the top player in your chosen field of activity, you need to start at the first step — the wholehearted participation. This simple act starts the process of growth and learning. It is the only way to know if you enjoy what you believed to be your calling in your head.

Next time you want to think big, tell yourself to participate in a real-life challenge. Jeff Bezos said, ‘Big things start small.’ Your honest participation is your first small step.

You don’t buy every book when you go to a book store. You read the book reviews for guidance. The curation is a review of your written piece — by Medium. What Medium wants and what you can do about it — an explanation of the requirements for successful curation.

For a good writer, writing is a difficult challenge. It requires endless care and constant focus from the birth of the idea to the final product. Sometimes, this product is good enough to be curated and distributed into topics for the Medium members — and the writer is in for a surprise as well as a little smile.