With competition happening all
around us to get what we want, one naturally must assert themselves and compete
in order to obtain their goals. Just
like everything else in the world, in competition there are boundaries which
can be crossed which could burn bridges for you in the future. When someone gets called competitive, it is
usually accompanied with feelings of that person being arrogant, rude, and
cut-throat. Rarely does the phrase, “Oh
that’s Steve, he’s really competitive”,
come out as a compliment for someone.
Most people don’t want others to have these opinions of them, and most
certainly don’t want to tear down potential sources for future help. So how does one actually stay competitive and
accomplish their goals, while at the same time show respect to others while not
coming off looking like a jerk?
One of the first keys is to
understand that building yourself up doesn’t
mean bringing others down. In our
competitive world it is extremely easy to lose sight of this. You can see a coworker do really good on a
project and get lots of praise. Feelings
of jealousy can creep in, and it’s easy to try to tear them down because they
are achieving and you aren’t, yet. All this
does is fill you with anger and contempt which only hurts yourself. It distracts from what really is important,
and actually hinders you from achieving your goals. It reveals a lack of
confidence that you have in yourself. One
of the biggest keys to achieving your goals is to believe in yourself.
If you start feeling jealous toward
another person, this is a red flag that your confidence isn’t where it needs to
be. You can then direct your energy
towards building your confidence up, instead of trying to harm someone
else. A personal Experience I have had with
this was on the football field. I had
just started with the SUU team, and I was 3rd string for my position. I wasn’t getting the playing time that I
wanted, and I was frustrated. It was
especially hard to be happy when the two players in front of me on the depth
chart were succeeding. I noticed that if
I spent the time where I was on the sideline cheering, encouraging, and celebrating
for the players in front of me, when it came my turn to play, I performed
better than when I hadn’t done that for them.
This is just my personal experience, but I believe that it hold true for
many situations of life.
It is a lot easier to stay positive,
keep competing, and hold on to your goals if you really Love what you do. Finding
your passion in life will make being positively competitive easy because the
problems in your life are actually challenges, and not other people. You greatly reduce the risk of burnout, and
you are excited to tackle problems ahead of you. Kurt Browning talked about the importance of loving what you do in a 2 min.
video. He does a much better job at explaining it than I can. According to his Wikipedia page
Kurt "is a Canadian figure skater, choreographer and commentator. He is a four-time World Champion and four-time Canadian National champion.
Lastly, when it comes to being positively
competitive Don’t be afraid to feel good
about what you have accomplished. I feel that it is true kindness to accept
compliments and rewards in a grateful manner.
You don’t need to talk yourself down or discredit compliments. How often in our society do we get praise and
follow it with phrases like, “No, I don’t deserve this”, or “It wasn’t really
that great”, etc. These are negative
thoughts that might come back to haunt you in the future if you make a habit
out of it. If we are saying negative things, even if you don’t mean it, it
makes it harder to stay positive later because our brains do know the
difference. Have you ever had a rough
patch in a day and couldn’t think of one positive thing that happened, even
though you know good things actually did happen? Accept praise in a kind manner. Don’t go out like you are Richard Sherman
saying how you are the best in the world and everyone else is scum. Say things like, “Thank you, I worked really
hard for this”, or “I appreciate that, it means a lot to me.” If the other person is lying then that’s
their fault. Feeling good about what you
have done is a way to keep the competitive fire hot. These great feelings can drive you through
hard times in the future. After all,
this is the whole reason that we compete, to have the good feelings of
success.
If you want an excellent read on
staying humble, linked is an article on entrepreneur.com.
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