It’s not the milestones of life that distinguish life’s winners, but the way they spend the moments in between. It’s not the wedding that graces a couple’s lives, but the marriage. It’s the application of knowledge that distinguishes the holder of the diploma or degree. The Oscars, the gold medals, the Pulitzer prizes and checkered flags mark highlights of a career. But it’s the path of mastery the winners walked that gives the prize enduring value.

Not all winners attain celebrity or fame; not all who attain celebrity or fame are winners. But genuine winners do serve as models to all who know them. Their lives are marked with purpose and direction. They’re the ones who know what matters to them and who listen to their highest dreams.

Winners come from every walk of life, from every culture and every class. However humble their trades or exalted their callings, winners use the work before them as a means for expressing the best they can give. They attend to details and seek nuances in familiar tasks. They practice the routines that serve them and relinquish thoughts and actions that restrict their outward flow. They finish what they begin.

Winners are content in the moment even as they anticipate their next steps. Their delight is in the process more than in the result. Their accomplishments are not so much the product of ambitious striving as they are a steady unfolding of personal interests, abilities and talents.

Winners don’t judge their work on the basis of what others have done, but against their own capabilities. Their passion is rooted in the constantly evolving expression of their potentials and strengths. When they see accomplishments that seem to surpass their own, they look at them not with envy but with an eagerness to learn and openness to seeing new possibilities for expanding their own proficiency. When they meet others whose emerging skills they can foster, they generously share, glad for having met a kindred spirit.

Winners are curious and daring when confronted with boundaries. They take the risk of moving past their fears. They’re willing to make mistakes and believe that the only defeat is the one they permit to stand. They continuously seek out experiences that will show them new facets of themselves.

Above all, they focus on their ever-expanding dreams. They keep a keen eye on their interior visions for emerging possibilities. They seek out the things they can refine, hone, sculpt, beautify, or strengthen. And they do it as a matter of course, as naturally as they breathe. Because that is what life means to them, and what gives their lives meaning for us all.

Winning begins with recognizing your dream, with hearing its call and daring to follow where it leads you. Not only will it lead you to rewards beyond what you imagine, but it will create for you a path of satisfaction and genuine joy. Find your dream; it’s waiting to shape you into the best you can be.

Susan K. Minarik is the author of Winning the Tomorrow Game—How to Discover and Create the Life of Your Dreams http://www.thetomorrowgame.com/Winning.htm

Subscribe to her free dream-builder ezine, The Magical Mirror at http://www.thetomorrowgame.com