Personal Growth 101: You are your own best competition.

As Steve Jobs once said, "Being the richest in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful... that’s what matters to me." He has rightly identified the importance of his internals over externals. But there are many, including us, who fail to understand this concept and fall into the traps of competition.

In all our spheres of life, competition exists.

One reason for competition would possibly be that people want to be the best, sometimes at any cost. When there are limited resources and many takers, competition is natural. Competition is a tendency that occurs in nearly every ecosystem on earth.

Fun Fact #1 : Humans are not simply another species. They are God-gifted. They have the ability to think, decide, cooperate, and subscribe to higher values of life such as harmony, love, loyalty, and trust!

Unfortunately, we compete with people who have the same skills or outlook as us. This keeps us restricted and increases external competition. When other people's skills have no bearing on our lives, we rarely feel threatened.

Every sport has an element of competition to it, and there is a joy in pushing yourself to the limit. But when the stakes are high and rewards are worthwhile, the ethic of "Doing the best'' just diminishes and people may even play dirty to win. Whether it's over-exaggerating in football or tampering with the ball to make it swing more in flight in a cricket match, reputed people can stoop low for some cheap and short gains.

1. A school or any educational institution is not for the pursuit of grades, but rather for the pursuit of knowledge. How many times have we fought with the teachers to get that 1 mark on our papers? How many times have we compared ourselves to other children in terms of grades, success, or authority? We fail to understand the futility of comparison and competition in such cases. No one judges a person in terms of another. But he/she is judged on his/her own capacity and ability.

The only difference in all spheres is with whom you are competing with. We go out expecting liberalism and equality, but we fail to be open-minded about the most basic things, such as understanding that activities like tests are for our own development, not to place ourselves in the class. People with a closed mindset want to grow by beating others in their field. open-minded people. On the other hand, they grow by developing themselves. They are their own competition.

Fun Fact #2: The actor Matthew McConaughey spoke about this same principle in his Oscar acceptance speech.

"And to my hero. That's who I chase. When I was fifteen years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and ask, "Who's your hero?" And I said, "I don't know, I gotta think about that. Give me a couple of weeks. " When I come back two weeks later, this person comes up and says, "Who's your hero?" I said, "I thought about it. You know who it is? It's me in ten years. " So, I turned twenty-five. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and says, "So, are you a hero?" And I was like, "Not even close. No, no, no. " She said, "Why?" I said, "Because my hero's me at thirty-five." So, you see, every day, every week, every month, and every year of my life, my heroes are always ten years away.

If this is how people are, everyone would start imbibing the perpetual quality of a learner rather than an amateur attitude.

While focusing on others' shine, we tend to miss our own diamond that we withhold in us. Competing with others was a distraction from your own creativity! " If we compare ourselves with others too much, we succumb to ordinariness. We don’t think in our own way but start thinking from the other person’s point of view, devoid of our own originality.

Now comes a very important question: Does this mean that the comparison is bad?

No.

Fun Fact #3: If we do have to compare ourselves with others, we should compare positive attitudes. "That person’s attitude to tirelessly keep working or grinding at their skills is inspiring." This can be the right way to compare.

According to the Japanese, everyone has an Ikigai—a reason to wake up every day. It not only helps you to streamline your passion and goals but also shows your weaknesses and guides you to overcome them too!

Written by Jash Rambhia