Competition is one of those things that when left unchecked, can quickly spiral out of control. When it does, it messes with the fragile human ego, breeds jealousy, envy, contempt toward others, and makes you ill at ease with yourself so we must be careful in terms of how we view it.
Competition first and foremost, obviously weeds out the many to show who is strong in a certain given area but the one important fact that’s so often forgotten with regard to this process is simply this:
That a person can’t be good at everything.
Some people are naturally more athletic than others, more creative, have the ability to retain knowledge more easily than others, etc. Competition puts those strengths in plain view.
But the key here is not to be so hard on yourself in terms of becoming sad at the fact that you can’t be good at everything but in finding out what YOU are good at and what really matters to you.
When you find what those things are, then you can start to make competition work for you.
Probably the greatest thing about competition with regard to areas in which you show considerable aptitude and interest is the fact that it keeps you on your toes. It acts as a very good catalyst to counter complacency.
It drives you to become better at your craft, to learn more about it, to seek help, to innovate, to create, so you won’t stagnate.
Without feeding off the energy that comes from competition, there’s no drive to push forward. It’s easy to keep on doing things the same way as before. Businesses that make the grave mistake of thinking they have no competition will find themselves at a loss when their market share evaporates to the small companies nipping at their heels.
But that should be the extent of how to view competition in areas in which you show considerable aptitude and interest – to feed off the energy that competition brings and more importantly, to internalize it.
You shouldn’t be spending too much time focusing on the competition but rather on making yourself better by using the energy that comes from it.
Internalize the energy, let it feed you, and channel it for your own good.
Compete with yourself based on the criteria you choose to set. If you choose to compete with the criteria that others set, you’ll always lose because you’re playing by somebody else’s rules.
Play by your own.
John Wooden, the most successful college basketball coach in history, rarely bothered to scout the teams he was playing against. If he did, he would do it very briefly. His main focus was on helping his own team become better at their strengths through practice and by identifying what needed to be fixed and to go on fixing it.
If you become so focused on the other team, you tend to lose that opportunity to build on your strengths and to fix your own flaws and instead, play by their rules, which is never a good thing. When you play by rules other than your own, you tend to lose clear sight of what’s right in front of you and things tend to get very complicated and stressful.
Internal competition has much more potential to accurately “sculpt” what YOU have in mind. If you take your eyes off the wet clay you’re sculpting while spinning the wheel, the end result won’t look all that great and it definitely won’t look like what you had in mind.
Acknowledge the energy that comes with competition and harness it internally. Let it inspire you to do more, to get better, to learn more, and to seek out help.
You’ve got to internalize the energy to better yourself because if all you do is view competition as beating the next guy, when there is no one left to beat anymore, you become complacent. You lose your edge. You’ve lost your hunger and that’s the worst thing that can happen to a fighter – when he loses his desire.
Instead, celebrate and acknowledge the diversity of strengths and interests that you find around you. Understand that you can’t be good at everything and then focus on finding and improving upon your very own strengths and interests.
Then feed off the energy that competition brings and internalize it to compete with yourself with your very own rules to sculpt exactly what you have in mind and you’ll find that the only result that’s possible for you is that you’ll only get better and better at it as time passes by.
