The Win/Lose paradigm makes everything a competition, making it seem that one person’s success must come at the expense of someone else’s success. Leaders with the Win/Lose mentality use an authoritarian style of leadership; people with this mindset tend to use their authority, power, status, or personality to get what they want. There’s a reason stubbornness is not considered a virtue. Inflexible people don’t lead effective lives. The more flexible you are, the more you will succeed. Consider this quote from Thomas Edison: With win-lose, you can get the short-term benefit, but with win-win, you ensure that not you but the other party gets what they want, which makes both parties satisfied. The habit of highly effective people is that they want to succeed along with others. Being intensely curious is a massive part of success. Look at the most successful people today and this is a common trait you will find across all of them. Cultivating a curiosity mindset requires that you ask lots of questions, learn new skills wherever you can, and search for the silver lining in failure. You walk into new challenges, just to see if there’s some value to extract. You need curiosity to spot the opportunities that others won’t see and ultimately, to lead a fulfilling life. 8. Optimistic One more example is how the author has used a small imaginary story of a person blindly insisting on a shirt-size, to pinpoint the absurdity of having fixed ideas and rigid mindsets.

See how to cultivate a positive self-image: How to Be Yourself and Cultivate a Positive Self-Image 7. Self-Discipline You can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig ZiglarThis habit is all about seeing the positive things in life. Being in a constant state of gratitude is what helps people carry on even in the toughest of times. Developing this mindset is as simple as keeping a gratitude journal. Simply write down three positive encounters that you had a part in creating, everyday. Your brain will begin to recognize positive situations unfolding and you can take full advantage of them. Gratitude also insulates you from the negativity in the world. If you only notice the bad things happening in life, it’s going to cause you stress. 5. Solution-oriented Self-discipline is learned, not innate. The skill is available to everyone with practice. Discipline begins with motivation -the desire to change the status quo – and grows by learning to function with discomfort and disappointment. Discipline requires learning to view failure as a learning experience, not a conclusion. Final thoughts Prakash Iyer's style is direct and simple. He has touched various aspects of life, with an emphasis on leadership. Life is a difficult game. You can win it only by retaining your birthright to be a person.” – A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Repeat this cycle until the act becomes a habit, second nature, an automatic response to any situation.

When it’s clear that two parties have entirely different goals, it can save a lot of problems to forgo a deal. The relationship can be kept healthy to collaborate on something different in the future.Practice self-discipline. Successful people are not born but made. They suffer the same temptations and disappointments as all humans. They succeed because they persist. In the face of obstacles and failure, they continue to pursue their goal until they succeed. Many people confuse self-discipline with obstinance. Exercising discipline does not mean stubbornness, continuing the same strategies or activities that do not work. Discipline is the willingness to seek a way around an obstacle rather than accepting failure. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines "habit" as something someone does often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that the activity is occurring. A study by psychologist Wendy Wood at the University of Southern California found that habits account for more than 40% of people's actions each day. Some scientists believe that the human tendency to develop habits — good and bad — is an evolutionary development of the brain. The brain uses about 20% of the body's energy, though it occupies about 2% of a person's body weight. Dr. Marcus Raichle at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis discovered that the average person burns about 320 calories per day just thinking. A 2018 University of British Columbia indicates that the brain is hardwired to conserve energy, thus favoring activities that do not require active thought (habit).

Emotional intelligence provides the leverage to nurture winning habits. Self-awareness empowers the development of a plan and establishment of a meaningful agenda, Self-management allows the focus, discipline and willpower to set change on the course of improvement. Empathy and relationships are the catalysts to manage and sustain excellence. When you’re trying to find a Win/Win solution with a person who has a Win/Lose paradigm, focus on the relationship: Make deposits in the Emotional Bank Account, show that you respect and appreciate the other person and her perspective. Don’t be reactive, but rather try to truly listen to and understand the other person. This process is itself a major deposit in the Emotional Bank Account, and eventually the other person may recognize that you genuinely want a Win/Win solution. Agreements Mirror actions that reinforce that attitude, the body language, the gestures, the facial expressions. In Covey’s terms, the Fourth Habit helps make deposits in the emotional bank account of the person you are dealing with.There are six paradigms for difficult interactions. It is the goal in habit 4: think win/win to be enabled to enact the win/win paradigm as much as possible. It’s important to recognize when, where, and how to use it. Stephen Covey’s think win/win paradigm can help us do that. The Win/Win: Everybody is Happy There are four kinds of positive and negative consequences that a manager or parent can impose (as opposed to natural consequences that are beyond either person’s control): You need to think different than the majority. And create habits and routines that other people simply aren’t willing to adopt and live out. Winners aren’t sheep. They are leaders. They think for themselves and they aren’t afraid to be wrong, critiqued or to stand alone. Losers are people who are looking for everyone to like them. They are to scared to stand up for themselves. From Oprah Winfrey’s practice of sitting still for 20 minutes to Robert Iger’s insistence on waking up at 4:30 a.m. every day, a lot of the winning habits of success aren’t peculiar or strange; they are regular and prosaic. The important thing is that habits sustain a level of structure and enthusiasm in your life, so you can always deliver at an optimum level. You may be able to string some wins together when you are tired. But you are going to gas out at some time. Sacrificing for rest means that you are going to be unpopular. You are going to going through the pain of you going home when people go out.