There is motivation in competing. Others offer a way to measure oneself, there is the possibility to show how much stronger one is than the other as well as the opportunity to know how close one gets to an optimal performance seen with others.

Winning a competition offers the opportunity to celebrate how well one is trained, to experience the spectators’ acclamations, and the ability to call oneself a winner.

And yet, while all may have been about winning, it is not winning that counts.

It’s something people often experience after working towards an objective. Once everything is achieved, they feel empty. The feeling of success doesn’t materialize as hoped for. It’s something people also realize after celebrating their achievement when they find themselves confronted with unexpected challenges or the necessity to step back into the day-to-day they hoped to leave as winners.

What counts is the journey to winning, how we treated others on the way and during the competition, and how we dealt with ourselves.

Knowing our principles, living them, and seeing how they support us on our journey is key to satisfaction. It means that the cost of going against our principles is not an option.