You’ve probably encountered the quote with a context that the only competition you have is to your self, but let’s face it, we all look our peers and sometimes create an icon and compare ourselves to them. Some say it’s bad for you but if done right could lead to something good. It will be our way of reminding our goals and fueling inspirations, just keep in mind that too much of everything will hurt you so be careful it could lead to depression.
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| Photo by Michael Neel |
Whether you’re a student, businessman, employee, pageant contestant, every one of us technically competes and compare ourselves to others and as we do that we learned a lot of things. Here are the 10 things your competitors can teach you about life.
Discipline: this is the most important skill that everyone should acquire at a very early age, unfortunately, not all have the chance and sometimes you need to undergo a tough stage where you will get it because you are competing with someone. When you have the desire to win, you will do everything, sacrifice things, time, or emotion and through it, you slowly learn to discipline yourself.
Laser- Focus Vision: The inspiration to be the greatest makes you a good planner. You’re able to compose a vision both long-term and short-term, and a vision that is wide yet clear. You start to scrutinize your plan and decisions and always consider a backup plan.
Goal Oriented: When you compare and contrast yourself versus another peer, you start to ask yourself what he/she has done to reach such achievement and what have you done on your self on the other hand. Then realization comes in and that is where a goal was birth. Once the goal has been structured, you then start to create a plan and because of your determination to be at least on par with your competitor if not greater than you stick to your goal no matter what.
Careful Daredevil (risk taker): If you want something you are willing to cross oceans, fight monsters, and pass all the challenges because you are aware that there is no easy path for a true success. However, you are a smart ass too and you know that you should not fight all the battles or cross all the oceans if there’s an alternative route to bypass some of them. You are a risk taker but wiser because there are other considerations that you probably bartered or willing to exchange like for example, time.
Self-awareness: As you scrutinize everything, the first thing that you’ve probably examine is yourself. You determine your strengths and weaknesses, you’re eager to discover more out of yourself. With all the necessary data about yourself, you know when and where to utilize them to gain benefits.
Investing unto oneself
Self Improvement: After you compare and contrast against your icon or your peer, you’ve looked in the mirror and you identified your flaws then you start to create a plan to improve it. You look for help from professionals to enhance yourself; it’s a good step but if overdone could lead to a disorder, so make sure to monitor yourself and be aware of your limits.
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| photo by Qiang Chen |
Curiosity: By looking at your peer is another way of showing curiosity. You start to ask questions and probe answers. This is the start that you read articles, books, blogs, magazines, news. Research is now part of your lifestyle and asking a question is your conversation opener.
Improve Resourcefulness: there are things that we cannot achieve so we look for an alternative, we go to a DIY strategy, improvise what we currently have. Being resourceful is a good attribute to have as this means a willingness to survive.
Filter and scrutinize the information: not all information or data is good and helpful for you. You start to be picky and a good researcher, you can identify important keywords that you want to include in your bag and use them for your goal. You ask questions and don’t believe easily to the information provided to you, you prefer fact over gossips.
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| Photo by cafuego |
Collaboration and Networking – For someone like me that is a little introvert and socializing is not my forte. I need to learn to face that “fear” and improve myself though I still have that introvert attitude but I can collaborate and network myself if necessary, in other words, I learn the to be strategic in choosing who I network with.