152: Our Top 9 Life Hacks
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Humans are competitive by nature. We want to improve on ourselves, and on those who came before us. Competition is what has gotten us to where we are. We often mistake unhealthy with healthy competition.
There are several main facets to unhealthy competition. One example is when people want to get their piece of the pie. By this, they are trying to make sure they get some of the attention because they view success as a limited commodity. They try hard and compare themselves to others. However, in doing so are quick to lose heart because they are never good enough. It turns into a negative to see someone else successful when you view yourself as being just as successful, but you don’t get the same level of attention you perceive them getting.
The next unhealthy display of competitiveness is someone who always competes just to thump their chest. When you see someone constantly talking about how they are the best and no one can compare, they are not doing it to be the best. They are just competing to be viewed as the best. We see this is athletes today. When an athlete blames the team and doesn’t look to where he/she needs to improve, it often breeds negativity within the team. The rest of the team feels negativity and resentment to the person thumping his chest and they lose the will to perform to their best.
The next unhealthy competition habit is found in the “One Upper.” The “One Upper” is the person who always has a better story. They always did something just as amazing or just slightly better. You tell a story, but they come back with a similar situation but did something better. No one likes to involve these people in conversations.
Healthy conversation lifts you up and is focused on improvement; Either improvement of self, or improvement of others. If you are trying to be the best version of ‘you’ that you can be or trying to lift others up to make the team successful, you are on the right track. Competition that drives you to be better without losing who you are in the competition is healthy. In leadership roles, your success is shown in how you drive healthy competition. How can you make the team better. If you end up pitting team members up against each other to where negativity forms, you breed unhealthy competition. Instead of lifting one person up and telling others to be like that person, try pointing out the successes of everyone on the team. This will breed a healthy teamwork environment and keep competition healthy.
