Are you competitive?

Athletes are often viewed as competitive. They want to be the best in their sport and win! But guess what? Athletes are not the only ones that can be or are competitive. Anyone can be competitive and not just in sports.

There are two kinds of competitiveness. Healthy and unhealthy.

Healthy competition can help push ourselves to get out of our comfort zone and motivate us to be the best that we can be. It can also encourage us to cheer for other competitors, friends, family or colleagues to reach their goals because we enjoy and want to see others succeed as well.

Unhealthy competition can be toxic and hurtful. Not just toward the other person but to ourselves.   For example, an unhealthy competitive person may feel defeated and discouraged when they see other people achieving their goals. So they just give up. But rather than give  up, try and learn from that person. What did they do differently? What were some of their own personal experiences that helped them accomplish their goal?

Another example, and unfortunately the most popular form of unhealthy competition is comparing yourself to others. This often happens through social media, i.e. Facebook.  You scroll through the news feed and you see everyone's '"amazing, happy, and fun," status updates and suddenly you feel your life is boring and unexciting.  But what we fail to remember is that everyone has bad days and very rarely will someone post if something bad is going on in their life! So stop comparing your life to those who share on FB. Be yourself, love who you are and just enjoy reading the posts as if you are reading an entertaining book.

Being resentful of others success is also very toxic. Just because we are not reaching our own goals does not mean that others have to be in the same boat. It can be challenging to accept other people's success when we are struggling.  But remember, everyone has their good and bad days and they may have faced the same or even harder challenges than you. So next time someone you know has an accomplishment, sincerely congratulate them! You may be surprised how much better you feel and it may even give you encouragement to stay focused on your own goals.

Last but not least, are you someone who secretly wishes for others to fail? This might sound strange to some people, but it's more normal than we think. Sometimes we feel so bad about ourselves that we want others to fail so that we don't feel or look like failures.  But this train of thinking has no benefits whatsoever. I can only recommend that you take a deep look at yourself and find out what your unique qualities are and embrace them.  We can not be good at everything and sometimes not reaching our goals pushes us to focus on another goal that is even better. So don't waste time or energy on wishing others to fail, instead, congratulate them on their successes and use their success as motivation.

So, what type of competitive person are you? I am and chose to be a healthy competitive person. I am always pushing myself out of my comfort zone by trying new sports or participating in a variety of events.  I also continuously strive to be better and not just in sports, but in my professional career and personal life as well. However, I'm not perfect and sometimes I find my competitive edge slowly becoming toxic. When this happens, I stop and remind myself that I have my own skills and talents and that the only person I should be comparing or competing against, is myself.