Your Competition Is With Yourself and No One Else
By: Brian Kim - November 5, 2006
Competition. We were probably introduced to this concept early on in life and developed an unhealthy view of it, namely that competition only involved those outside us.
The problem with having that kind of view of competition is that it makes everything you do work AGAINST you because your whole purpose lies outside yourself. In other words, you give your precious personal power away because now your actions are dictated by those around you.
But let’s say for arguments sake, that you’ve obliterated all competition and you stand alone at the top of the mountain. Guess what? You have no reason to grow now. You beat them all. You fall into that dangerous trap known as complacency. Most people only have drives based solely on external factors, but what happens if you take that away? Their reason for improving goes away as well. This NEVER happens if you adopt the model of competing with yourself.
Competition with those outside of you LIMITS you in the end because it is based entirely outside of you.
Competition with yourself makes you GROW because it is based entirely within you.
When you adopt the model of ceasing to compete with others and resolve only to compete with yourself, a series of events start to fall into sequence that will forever change your life.
Anxiety ceases to develop and in its place, a warm, soothing wave of calmness spreads throughout your body from head to toe as you realize that your actions will now be dictated from within.
You no longer harbor any anger, resentment, or ill-will toward others who you previously viewed as “competition”. You become at peace with them because now you are at peace with yourself.
You start to develop a laser like focus in terms of how you can become better for YOU, not for others and adopt the kaizen model of improvement, little by little, which is arguably the most effective way to do it.
With this newfound laser like focus on improving yourself, you develop an uncanny sense of control of your own life. You don’t waste any time thinking about what other people are doing. Your sole focus is to become the best that YOU can be, based on the standards that YOU set.
When you realize this, you start to develop that virtuous quality known as action, not reaction.
Competition as you once knew it, begins to fade away and what’s left is rewarding, joyful, and healthy competition with yourself that actually becomes more motivating and fun as time passes by. It becomes so addicting that it naturally instills itself within you in the form of a habit. You begin to look forward to seeing if you can jog for 15 more seconds on your next run, to pushing 2 more reps than you did last week, or to doing a better job at work than you did the day before.
As you see yourself overcoming the bars you set for yourself, you develop an unshakable confidence that is second to none and now, truly, nothing outside of you can stand in your way.
True competition lies within you. That’s the proper way to view it. Only by competing with yourself will true personal progress be made, because that progress is measured on your own terms and not that of others.
Competition based outside of you can be a powerful driving force, but ultimately, in the end it works AGAINST you. Competition with yourself; now that is a something to be feared by all.
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