Competition is a dirty word!

I trained to be a PE teacher (many moons ago) and I remember there was a time when competition was being discouraged in PE, with the growth of self-esteem being favoured more. It was taken out of sports days and everyone got a participation certificate.

And we’re hearing a lot about co-operative practices these days, in business and other areas of our lives.

Now, I really love co-operative working. Each Tuesday, when I can, I join a co-working group where we share our wins, set targets for the day and are accountable to each other. We’ve created joint work between us and it really works well.

Just this morning we got chatting about competition.

One member said how seeing us succeed was inspiring her to work harder. She saw it as competition, but healthy competition. In fact, she called it Inspired Competition.

Loved that!

We can’t get away from the concept that competition is all around us.

If we go for a job, not everyone gets it, the best candidate gets taken on. If we enter a sporting competition, not every team can win, the strongest team with the best tactics (usually) wins.

There are so many situations where we are competing for the same spot, grant, position etc. Competition is all around us.

However, how we deal with it is the key.

It can demotivate us, if we are using others results and achievements as our sole esteem and confidence markers.

Or we can use it as Inspired Competition.

So here are 3 ways that you could use competition to inspire you this month.

1. Use a Pacemaker. Athletics often uses pacemakers in middle and long distance races to set the pace. If an athlete is going for a certain time, the pacemaker will set the pace and usually drop out before the end. However, the winning athlete will still run their own race, making sure they use their strengths and tactics to win the race.

Who is your pacesetter? There’s no need to feel bad abut this comparison. They’re there to inspire you. However, you are running your own race. They may be inspiring you to keep up a good pace, but your strengths and way of working will lead to success for you in the end.

2. Celebrate other’s breakthroughs. We know the story of Roger Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile in 1956, an aim that had been seriously strived for since the 1880’s. And we also know that within the next year, many more athletes then broke the 4 minute mile ‘barrier’. So, what changed. It’s our Mental Model, our belief in what’s possible.

Who’s achievement can you recognise and celebrate? When we recognise our competition’s win, we change the belief of what’s possible in our own mind too. So, celebrating someone else’s win can open the gateway to our own success too.

3. Have a worthy rival. How many times have we seen rivals at the top of sport push each of them to achieve greater things. Federer and Nadal. Messi and Ranaldinho. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Sha’carri Richardson. Arguably, all of these sportspeople have raised their performances even higher with having that direct competition.

Who’s your direct competition? Who can you identify in your industry who spurs you on? You pick up you game, take things to the next level, because you know that you want to keep driving your own standards and successes? Use this as your fuel.

Whichever one of these resonates with you best, use it to make December a great month for you. Remember we have 12 months in the year, so let’s use them all.

It could be the difference between a good end of the year or finishing on a high.

#inspiredcompetition #competitiveedge #competition #cooperation #createyourlife #createanedge #exathlete #formerplayer #beawesome