Competition breeds excellence. Or, at least, it provides the motivation to become better. It is within human nature to be competitive. That reality, along with expressing it, is quite alright. In fact, many would argue it is healthy and vital to human development. I will let you decide how important it is for yourself or society. Alas, I digress.
If you wish to partake in competition, excellent. I wish you the very best. Do not, however, make the competition the goal. Make bettering yourself through competition the goal. If competition becomes the goal, one loses sight of what the point of this exercise is. We compete to win, yes, and to promote winning without effort is not a good practice.
If you wish to learn and better yourself through competition, though, do not seek only to win. You will ultimately achieve nothing, even if you are dubbed “#1″. If you lose, do not despair. The act of not being the best only brings to light how you can become so. There are few times where “failure” is an actual outcome. Most times, however, loss is not failure.
We train to adequately contest, we win to reward our efforts, and we lose to learn how better ourselves. If you stumble, trip and fall; get up, dust yourself off and watch your footing next time around. Make sure not to stumble again. The entirety of competition is essential, not simply attaining the trophy.
