The Psychology of Winning

Denis Waitley

The 10 Qualities of a Total Winner

Quality 1:  Positive Self-Expectancy 

"Life is a self fulfilling prophecy. True winners go into every event expecting to win."

There never was a winner who didn’t expect to win in advance. Winners understand that life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they know that you usually get what you expect in the long run. So winners accept the belief that hope and a deep, unbreakable faith — forged into a fundamental attitude of positive self-expectancy — is the eternal spring from which all creative, motivating energy flows.

Quality 2: Positive Self-Motivation 
"True winners dig deep and find motivation inside themselves to get through that tough task or to learn a new skill."

Quality 3: Positive Self-Image
True winners are confident and view themselves as competent, valuable human beings.

Quality 4: Positive Self-Direction
You gotta have direction if you are going to go anywhere. True winners know where they are going. Their sense of direction comes from the self and not from outside influences like parents or friends.

Quality 5: Positive Self-Control
Total winners can sacrifice immediate pleasure for a gain in the future. Delayed gratification is of immense value in reaching your goals.

Quality 6: Positive Self-Discipline
You have to discipline yourself or else someone else will discipline you into doing what they want you to do. Total winners have the power to discipline and take control of their lives.

Self discipline means self control, which is a sign of inner strength and control of yourself, your actions, and your reactions. Self discipline gives you the power to stick to your decisions and follow them through, without changing your mind, and is therefore, one of the important requirements for achieving goals.

Quality 7: Positive Self-Esteem

Your mood and outlook on life affect the way you see the world and how you interact in it. Total winners are positive, powerful people who make people feel good and provide a good vibe to those around him/her.

The benefits of a healthy self-esteem are many. Children who have high self-esteem come to value themselves and think of themselves as worthy partners and capable problem solvers. They develop a healthy balance of liking who they are, but also recognizing that there are ways they can continue to grow and to develop.Self-esteem and self-confidence seem like pretty much the same thing, but they're not. For example, maybe you can easily get in front of a crowd, give a speech, and command a room, which shows self-confidence, but at the same time, you feel like crap about your own public speaking, which is a lack of self-esteem.

Quality 8: Positive Self-Dimension

Total winners like in the present. They know that now is all there is. They don’t get caught up in the past or worry about the future. They simply handle the business that they can handle which is the stuff going on today, now.

Self-concept is distinguishable from self-awareness, which refers to the extent to which self-knowledge is defined, consistent, and currently applicable to one's attitudes and dispositions.Self-concept also differs from self-esteem: self-concept is a cognitive or descriptive component of one's self (e.g. "I am a fast runner"), while self-esteem is evaluative and opinionated (e.g. "I feel good about being a fast runner").


Self-concept is made up of one's self-schemas, and interacts with self-esteem, self-knowledge, and the social self to form the self as whole. It includes the past, present, and future selves, where future selves (or possible selves) represent individuals' ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, or what they are afraid of becoming. Possible selves may function as incentives for certain behavior.

Quality 9: Positive Self-Awareness

Total winners are aware of their power. They understand that they can be anything with enough effort and determination.
Conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.Self Awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment.We might quickly assume that we are self aware, but it is helpful to have a relative scale for awareness. If you have ever been in an auto accident you may have experienced everything happening in slow motion and noticed details of your thought process and the event. This is a state of heightened awareness. With practice we can learn to engage these types of heightened states and see new opportunities for interpretations in our thoughts, emotions, and conversations. Having awareness creates the opportunity to make changes in behavior and beliefs.

Quality 10: Positive Action

Total winners take positive action in their business and with their friends and family. They are uplifting and motivating individuals who inspire the best from themselves and other


In Europe, positive action are measures which are targeted at protected groups in order to enable or encourage members of those groups to overcome or minimise disadvantage; or to meet the different needs of protected group; or to enable or encourage persons in protected groups to participate in an activity. In the United Kingdom in the Equality Act 2010 ss 158-159, the term is used in the context of employment to allow selection of a candidate from an "under-represented" group, so long as he or she is no less than equally qualified compared to another potential candidate that is not from the under-represented group.