Some time ago, when Tom Brady was at the height of his game, I read a great article about him that I've been telling people working with me about ever since.

The point of the article was the following. While Tom's basic skills were solid, there were other quarterbacks who could throw the ball, run, etc. as well as Tom could or better. So, what was it that Tom Brady had going on that caused him to win championship after championship?

The writer of the article concluded that what Tom Brady had was skill in winning. In other words, what caused him to win was skill in doing just that, skill that involved things like motivating the players around him and continuing to coolly do everything he could to win a game even when his team was down over 20 points in the fourth quarter.

And I've found that the same thing applies in the GMAT game. Regardless of what math or verbal skills a GMAT aspirant may have, skill in winning counts for a lot too.

For example, recently, a Marty Murray GMAT Coaching student was having trouble breaking out of a score plateau. Even though his skills were strong, he still wasn't achieving his target score. What was he missing? He had to develop skill in winning. In other words, we discovered that his mentality and approach to handling questions and the test overall were not conducive to scoring high. Then, when he changed that, his score quickly soared to 695.

In the context of the GMAT, skill in winning involves things like having a growth mindset, refusing to let skill gaps linger, being determined to understand a confusing passage or question, and using positive self talk when you're in the middle of the test and starting to feel stressed. It also involves banning the word "frustrating" from your vocabulary. All that matters when you run into challenges is figuring out how to make your goal happen.

It's things like that, combined with math, verbal, and reasoning skills, that lead to high scores.

So, as you're learning topics, answering practice questions, and making all the other standard GMAT prep moves, consider also working on developing skill in winning. That skill will help you achieve your GMAT goal and can serve you well beyond the GMAT as well.