What do we mean by 'sharing success'?

Do you know why success breeds success? Have you heard of the winner effect?

In this sports-coaching article focused on sailing, we talk about sharing success as a winner effect: every step toward a goal unlocks biomechanical knowledge and psychological attitudes that turn each advance to the next level into a meaningful emotional reward.

What do we call success?

Author Ian Robertson points out that the word "success" comes from the Latin exitus, meaning "exit", and is conceived as the final and pleasing outcome of a situation. Success is, then, freely achieving what you want — reaching a purpose or arriving at a goal.

Under this definition, every stage of life in which we attain what we wanted could be considered a success — it's the final intent of any plan we start. Still, the meaning of success is personal and relative to each person's goals, possibilities and conditions.

Several great minds agree that success is rooted in persistence and perseverance:

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." — Winston Churchill

"Success is reached by turning every step into a goal and every goal into a step." — C. C. Cortés

Are success and happiness the same thing?

It depends on each person's perspective and on many emotional considerations — but, while closely related, most people see success as standing on a summit, while happiness is something to be enjoyed along the way. We align mid- and long-term goals through intermediate milestones for personal (individual challenges), professional (studies and work) or family (children and parents) reasons; each milestone corresponds to a separate success across a lifetime.

Success is about achieving what you desire; happiness involves a broader sense of well-being and self-satisfaction. So when you're happy, you are succeeding — you've reached the goal humans most cherish.

What is the physiological effect of success?

Physiologically, success — like other rewarding stimuli such as food, drink or sex — is linked to the brain's reward system: the areas in charge of motivation. Without going deep, the key neurotransmitter to mention is dopamine, primarily responsible for pleasure and motivation.

Dopamine ties certain situations to a sense of pleasure and teaches us which actions are good for us, motivating us to repeat them. When we achieve something we long for, dopamine rises; the act of winning also boosts this neurotransmitter, producing that gratifying feeling and making the person highly competitive in both sport and professional life.

Emotional levels success creates

• Joy and a positive mood.
• Personal satisfaction and well-being.
• Self-confidence.
• Greater motivation.
• Commitment and effort.

What drives success

• Embracing challenges: lets us experiment, innovate, stay motivated and take initiative.
• Setting goals and objectives: defined, clear and — above all — feasible.
• Self-knowledge: lets us see our strengths (anchors) and weaknesses (opportunities for growth).
• Emotional intelligence: the ability to know yourself at all times and to react in ways that sustain the strategies that lead to your goal.
• Persistence: observing, detecting and channelling effort into what truly deserves it, steadily and over time.
• Flexibility: the ability to adapt to circumstances and to change when the situation demands it.
• Resilience: developing the capacity to learn and grow in the face of adversity.
• Experience: having lived success makes you more likely to achieve it again. This is one of the most important drivers and is known as the winner effect.

What is the winner effect?

The experience of succeeding improves mood, self-confidence, motivation, concentration and the capacity to make a greater effort. That drive to improve and stand out increases the odds of succeeding again next time. That's why we say success breeds success: it feeds itself, linking one success to the next. In sports, the winner of a match has been shown to have around a 60% probability of winning the next match or competition. Even students who have passed one test are more likely to pass the next.

The winner effect was coined by Ian Robertson, a neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, who explains how — after winning a first challenge — the odds of winning the next one rise for physiological reasons. The experience of winning raises dopamine concentrations, and the resulting sense of well-being and motivation prepares us to face the next challenge. Testosterone also rises, increasing reaction speed and lowering fear — encouraging us to take risks. All this ultimately increases the likelihood of success.

References

• Ian Robertson, "The Winner Effect" (video), YouTube, 4 Feb 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asGZlHxsLY8
• Luna, M. (2015). Psicología del éxito. Corre La Voz.
• Pásaro, M. R. (2002). Bases biológicas de la felicidad (Vol. 18). Universidad de Sevilla.