Photo by Victoire Joncheray on Unsplash

I love playing Mario Kart with my partner. When you’re talking about fun factor, it’s genuinely one of the best games of all time.

I do harbour a dark secret though. I don’t really care if I win or lose.

Ok, so it’s not really a dark secret. My girlfriend is acutely aware that I am not at all competitive and it drives her crazy. You see, for her, the competition is what makes it fun. She loves to win, and she hates to lose. I’m sure that this balance is in her mind from the moment the lights go green to the moment she crosses the finish line.

Me? Not so much. I’m just in it for the drive. Sure I get that rush of endorphins when I win, but it’s short lived and not even close to being the primary reason for the activity. Not really a problem when it comes to Mario Kart (but seriously, she really disagrees on this) but is it a problem when this lack of a competitive drive spills over into other areas of your life?

I don’t think so.

(Side note — My girlfriend just walked in and asked me what I’m writing about. I told her I’m trying to write an article explaining how there can be benefits to not being competitive. She laughed and joked “There aren’t any.” See what I mean?)

I can’t ever remember being truly competitive. It feels quite strange to me that my own sense of happiness, achievement or success should be based on whether somebody else fails. In so many things in life for there to be a winner, there must also be a loser to varying degrees. The idea of that does not make me happy. Why would I want anyone to lose? And even if someone else fails does that make me better at all? Nope!

Now I’m not talking about the participation trophies of life where everybody is treated equally regardless of achievement or skill but rather recognising how we motivate ourselves toward success. Some people (such as my partner) really thrive on that competition between peers, and that’s great! I have no hard statistics, but I think that most people fall into this category, it’s how we as a species have progressed so rapidly. Competition is good an encourages growth, I do not deny that.

But what about those people (such as myself) who don’t respond well to a competitive environment?

Can we still be successful?

THE OFFICE YES GIF

The first step to success is to define what success means for you. Everyone wants different things out of life so it makes little sense, if any, to rush off in search of one kind of success if it’s not really the thing that you should be chasing down.

Once you know what it is that you’re after it’s important to lay out the steps that you need to take to get there. If you want to be physically fitter and healthier, then step one is to stop eating pizza every night (that’s the dream). If you want to earn more money, then look at your current career and ask yourself how to do that. Maybe you need to be attracting higher paying clients. If you’re salaried then how do you get that next promotion or is it perhaps time to move on to another company if you feel like you are stagnating.

But how to actually motivate yourself if you’re not always chasing somebody else (or trying to keep ahead of the pack if you’re lucky enough to be there!).

It’s simple. You chase yourself. I don’t concern myself with what others are doing or how well they are doing (other than to congratulate them, obviously! That’s just nice!) but you can bet that I’m tracking my own progress and measuring my own progress toward my goals. I think there’s a common thought process that if someone isn’t outwardly competitive then they must either not care about success or they must be lazy.

Neither of these things is true. You can be inwardly focused and still concerned with your own success.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Often in life, there is a winner and a loser, and that can be healthy. It’s how we learn, develop and grow. But too often we can become enveloped in what others are doing and forget to focus on ourselves and our own needs and development! If you enjoy that competitive element, then embrace it! It’s what works for you! If you find you’re not motivated by it, then that’s fine too!

Either way, take a bit of time out every now and again to make sure the track that you’re on is the track you want to be on! Don’t get lost chasing the pack!