The Will to Win vs. The Want to Win

One of the things I've learned after years of coaching wrestling is that almost everybody wants to win.

They want the medal. They want the championship bracket hanging on the wall. They want their hand raised. They want to stand on the podium. They want the recognition that comes with being successful.

There isn't anything wrong with that. Winning is fun. Success is fun.

The problem is that wanting to win and having the will to win are two completely different things.

The want to win is easy. Everybody has it.

The will to win is much harder.

The will to win is what gets you out of bed when you're tired. It's what gets you through a hard practice after a long day at school. It's what keeps you moving forward after a tough loss when everybody else is looking for excuses.

I've coached long enough to know that the wrestlers who achieve the most are not always the most talented. They're often the ones who are willing to keep going when things aren't perfect.

They're willing to push through the soreness. They're willing to push through the setbacks. They're willing to push through the days when they're making progress and the days when they feel like they're going backward.

The truth is that wrestling, like life, doesn't care about your plans.

You're going to have injuries.

You're going to lose matches you think you should win.

You're going to have bad tournaments.

You're going to have days where you feel stuck.

What separates wrestlers isn't whether those things happen. They happen to everybody.

What separates wrestlers is what they do next.

Do they get up and keep moving forward, or do they allow a setback to become a stopping point?

One of the biggest mistakes young wrestlers make is spending too much time focusing on things they can't control. They worry about rankings, brackets, officials, opponents, and all sorts of things that have nothing to do with their own preparation.

Instead, I encourage wrestlers to focus on what they can control.

Their effort.

Their attitude.

Their preparation.

Their consistency.

Those things matter.

Years ago, I started encouraging wrestlers to write down their goals. Not because writing something down magically makes it happen, but because it forces you to think about what you actually want.

If your goal is to place at state, write it down.

If your goal is to become a varsity starter, write it down.

If your goal is to wrestle in college, write it down.

But don't stop there.

Next to that goal, write down the little things that support it.

Maybe it's attending offseason practices.

Maybe it's lifting twice a week.

Maybe it's improving your bottom wrestling.

Maybe it's keeping a journal.

Maybe it's getting enough sleep.

Maybe it's finding better training partners.

The goal is important, but the little things are what actually move you toward it.

Then put that list somewhere you'll see it every day.

Put it on your mirror.

Put it on your bedroom wall.

Put it in your wrestling notebook.

Put it somewhere you can't ignore it.

Because when life gets busy—and it always does—it's easy to forget what you're working toward.

Having your goals in front of you serves as a reminder of what matters.

The wrestlers who accomplish big things usually aren't doing one extraordinary thing. They're doing a lot of ordinary things consistently over a long period of time.

That's where the will to win shows up.

It's in the daily choices.

It's in the extra drill.

It's in staying after practice for a few minutes.

It's in getting up after a bad tournament and getting back to work.

It's in refusing to let one setback define your season.

Now, I want to be clear about something. Doing all the little things does not guarantee you'll win.

There are no guarantees in wrestling.

You can do everything right and still lose.

You can train hard and still fall short of a goal.

But when you've done all the little things, when you've followed your plan, when you've stayed disciplined, when you've controlled what you can control, then you've given yourself the best possible chance to succeed.

More importantly, you've given everything you had in pursuit of that goal.

At the end of the day, that's all any coach can ask for.

Everybody wants to win.

The question is whether you're willing to do the things that winners do long before anyone is watching.

That's the difference between the want to win and the will to win.

The want to win talks about goals.

The will to win creates a plan, follows the plan, gets back up after setbacks, and keeps moving forward.

And in wrestling, just like in life, that's usually where success is found.