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I’ve reflected quite a lot on my own competitiveness lately. I have a reputation among my friends of being obnoxiously competitive.
It’s served me well at times, just as it’s been a hindering factor to many of my relationships.
→ The benefits
Being competitive has made me push harder. It’s made me go the extra mile on several occasions. The other day I finished my run by competing with a bike (I won, thank you very much!). I’ve competed with people in working hard, for grades and for jobs.
This has built a competitive mindset that’s hard to beat. For me, it’s unlocked potential I know isn’t there for other, less competitive people. Even in situations where there’s no obvious competition.
I have the ability to make up stories about what other people do, did and said, and turn that into fuel by competition. Just like Michael Jordan described here:
https://youtu.be/zMJowIB7c_A?t=196
It doesn’t matter to me, I’ll compete against the story. And I’ll do my absolute best to win.
→ The backlashes
It’s not always time for competition. I had a situation just 2 years ago where we were celebrating my then girlfriends birthday. It was the first time I met most of her friends. We were in a park to play some games, and there was one other person as competitive as I.
Long story short, we ended up taunting each other relentlessly, screaming at each other and aggressively cheering on our own teams. We both had a great time. The others, not so much. Especially my girlfriend was so annoyed with me, she banned me from playing games as well as we had a long argument after leaving.
This is just one of the stories, and that’s when I thought I had my competitive temper under control.
That’s the temper of competitiveness, but I’ve run into problems with the act of competing as well. One of my best friends hated that I competed in one of our hobbies, which created a rift between us. It’s not all about the temper.
→ Turning competitiveness and the temper into a dial
Just as I spoke about in the last episode, my goal is to be able to turn this behaviour into a dial rather than a binary function. There are a host of emotions blowing up within me when competing, and I want to learn when and how to activate them
Just as well, I want to be able to do stuff recreationally. And I’m getting there. It’s not easy, but I find myself more often nowadays just doing things because they’re fun or to enjoy the company.