Game on! Navigating healthy competition

Life is a competition even though I have heard people say that the only competition we should have should be to ourselves but it’s something we cannot avoid. We see everything around us directly or indirectly pointing to the fact that we are in a competition. During our primary education, our performances are graded as either good or bad in the class room. Some come first and the others come below but be it as it may, we all want to come first in the class and this unconsciously puts us in a state where we are all competing for who would be the first in the class.
Image created with meta AI

In some families where the parents do not know how to balance their love for their children, hence competition rises. Some parents make it obvious that they love one of the children more than the others and before you know what’s happening, competition sets in amongst the siblings for their parents attentions and sometimes these competitions are taken to a dangerous level that breeds fractures in the relationships of siblings.

In my secondary school days, I had this particular girl that I always felt we were in a competition. Nobody stated it but it was obviously an unwritten statement because she was always taken the first position while I came second. I was always looking for how to beat her in class until she was transferred to another school. When she left, I felt my competition was gone. We were always involved in some activities in school such as inter house sports and it was competitive as we were all looking for who would be the winner.

Competition can be a sign of growth indeed if it is well handled and each individual involved can always look for ways to grow and be a better part of themselves if they are well taught and rightly motivated. For example, in a work environment, colleagues in a sales department can be motivated to push themselves and be better if they are thought how to compete healthily, knowing it’s not a do or die affair. I feel that one of the things that breed unhealthy competition is comparison. People do not want to be compared to another especially not in a bad light. When you begin to compare someone with another person, it makes the person want to go to any means to outsmart the comparison even if it means cutting corners and cheating.

When a competition becomes unhealthy, you see all manner of bias and dirty tricks at work. So not comparing siblings to siblings, colleagues to colleagues would be a great way to stall unhealthy competition. Competition becomes unhealthy when gimmicks, lies, cheating becomes part of the process all in a bid to win. Some people even go as far as hurting their opponents or manipulating the entire process all in a bid to win a competition.

In a competition some win and some loose and that’s the same thing with life. We win some and we loose some. We mustn’t always win. If we have this understanding in our mind, it could help to keep the competition healthy. In anything we do, we endeavor to put in our best but if for any reason we didn’t come out as the first, we take it in good heart and push to do better next time knowing that we won’t always win. With this kind of mindset, We would be able to compete healthily.

Posted Using INLEO