If you have a coach helping you, developing your skills alongside you, that's when you're on your way to becoming not just a participant but achieving.
“It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.”
“It was announced as a French victory by the French Minister of War. I did not see any sign of victory but only the retreat of the French forces engaged in the battle.”