Let’s get one thing straight. I am all for having a positive attitude. In my opinion, I think it’s the best way to “be” and it appears to be the most beneficial way to conduct your mind and your thinking process. In any situation, no matter how terrible, you have the choice to think pessimistically or optimistically. You have the choice to search for the best possible outcome, or simply be open to one. And if there appears to be no “positive” qualities to the experience, then you can at least choose to hope for some future positive lesson or meaning to it all. With all that said, we must differentiate this from what’s called a “winning attitude.”
A winning attitude is dangerous. It has its proper place on the battlefield. Pick your field of choice, and you can clearly see how it is beneficial to hold a winning attitude. Whether it’s in sport, business, self-defense, conquest, standing up for yourself, etc. this attitude will serve your one purpose in the moment, to win, to defeat the opposition. But at what cost?
There’s always a cost, and sometimes it’s the highest. The tragic hero pays the ultimate price, but they still win the day, even though there are no more days left for them.
The purpose of this article is to help you see how a winning attitude can be detrimental to yourself regarding pure fitness. If your solitary goal is to become more fit, or the fittest you can be, or the most physically able in any imaginable way, then a winning attitude should be feared and discarded. You should instead adopt a purely honest and genuine positive attitude during your training.
If your sole goal is to become your best self, then you have no one to defeat. If you are only working to enhance your own abilities, then you must first be completely honest with your current abilities. You must know where you are on the map before you can plot a course to where you want to be.
Being truly honest with your own abilities takes courage and humility. They say you should “leave your ego at the door” and they’re right. The whole point of “doing fitness” is to better yourself by stimulating your body’s natural ability to enhance itself. When you over-stimulate (by either being unaware of your limits or ignoring them all together) a few things will happen in a cascading fashion.
First and foremost, when you attempt to do more than you should, your body will compensate to “get the job done, or win” and your desired target area will be denied its full usage with the compensating parts risking injury. Secondly, you will lengthen your recovery time, making it tougher to stimulate frequently enough to generate the maximum intended effect. And lastly, the compounded effects of over-training will lead to strain and injury setting you back even further, indefinitely, or permanently in the worst cases. So, by attempting to win, you’ve set yourself up to “lose” ultimately.
Understanding just how much you should push yourself in fitness for the best and safest results is not easy to learn. It simply contradicts our primal human quality to seek winning. The answers to your ideal training effort levels are found in both science and art form, and it’s something I love to teach. If this is something you’ve always wanted to grasp, then plan for at least 3 or 4 tough workouts per week, for at least one month. Please don’t hesitate to reach out as I’m happy to help. 
