Not being a big sports fan I only recently learned about the concept of playing to win versus playing not to lose. It struck me how powerfully this concept relates to how we live our lives and our life purpose.
Playing to win consists of setting our attention on the vision we create for our life and letting that guide our every move. It has a positive pull towards the goal and sets us up energetically to succeed, to win.
Playing not to lose puts us on the defensive and directs us to a negative outcome, thus energetically directing our attention onto what we do not want to happen, losing.
I will use my life purpose and lesson as an example. When I focus my attention on living from my life purpose, The Healer with Heart, I connect with my vision of helping people fall in love with themselves and doing it in a light-hearted way. That charges me up and I am in the flow of ideas of how I can reach people with my message and be of greatest service in the world.
If I am playing not to lose, I will be stuck in the mire of my life lesson, Stuffing My Feelings. Our life lesson is our defensive posture. I I stuff my feelings, I am safe. I do not take any risks that would “hurt” me or cause me to have feelings that could be uncomfortable. I have no passion for my goals. I disconnect from my purpose and am not even looking for ideas for getting my message out. I am more focused on myself than I am on serving others.
Life from the stuckness of our lesson is flat, dull, lacking in purpose and a total waste of all the potential any of us has to be of value in the world.
I’m going to begin a series on the digits and their lessons so everyone who has had their hands analyzed can see how this impacts their lives.
Stuffing Your Feelings is a left index finger lesson. The right index finger lesson is Giving Away Your Power or Powerlessness.
Playing not to lose when your lesson is Powerlessness would look like giving away your power to live your purpose to any of the following.
You could be giving your power away to other people and saying, “my husband or wife would be angry if I left my secure job to live my life purpose.”
Or you could give away your power to circumstances. “The economy is too uncertain to take this risk.”
Are you giving your power away to beliefs? “Everyone knows you can’t make money as an artist.” Beliefs like the starving artist archetype permeate our culture and are a nice safe way to play not to lose.
Underlying this lesson is a complete lie that is not easy to recognize when it is your life lesson. The lie is that you do not have any power. Sadly when you truly believe that you cannot access the power we all have inside us.
Playing to win on the other hand would have you so connected to your vision for your life you would access your inherent power easily and move in the direction of your vision.
I hope you found something of value in this exploration and I look forward to looking at all the rest of your fingers and thumbs in future editions of the newsletter.
Warmest regards,
Rosemary Heenan
The Heart Activist
Heart Power Coaching
Website: http://www.rosemaryheenan.com
Email: info@rosemaryheenan.com
Heart Power Coaching Upcoming Events
Have your hands analyzed and/or Book your Mini Life Purpose party soon so you and your friends will be ready for the exciting upcoming workshop! Contact me to schedule your party. September dates are filling up fast.
Embody Your Life Purpose one-day workshop Saturday, October 30. Take your hand analysis results to the next level. This workshop is designed to help you fully align with your soul purpose. You will create a sensory experience of your purpose that gives you a visceral memory you can return to at will after the event. You will leave with a design for your ideal life, living fully in your purpose and strategies to support you when challenges come your way.
This post hit the nail on the head for me. I can definitely recognize times I am playing to win and times (like now) when I’m playing not to lose. this tends to happen when I focus too much on marketing or business and don’t focus enough on making connections and letting my light shine.
Can hardly wait for the day I can afford to pay someone to do all the yucky business stuff for me 🙂
thanks for posting Rosemary. I love your blog!