Point

The point of competitiveness is to elevate your "enemy"

Summary

Competition is a tough subject to broach because there is some guilt around people who feel overly competitive and feel like they must destroy others, and then there are those that do not feel competitive at all.

What is the correct Approach?

First, let's define a few things. Competition is not War, no one needs to die for you to win or get better.

An interesting note about this. War shares its derivation with the word 'Worse' and 'Confuse'.

Obviously, war is not an ideal way to live.

Let's look at where the derivation of compete or competitiveness comes from.

"Late Latin competere to seek together"

At this point there should be some small semblance, of "Oh, shit, I sort of see where this is going".

Explanation

With that out of the way, let's get more granular.

How is this useful?

Well, the main issue with people that feel like they should be more competitive is they do not like to tear others down in order to further themselves.

I don't blame you for that, that is a very sane way to approach life. You should not want to tear people down.

With a fairly small re-frame you can change how you feel about this though.

Instead of a competitive approach of "How can I not lose".

Turn it into "How can I show up so good that it inspires the other person to do better"

If you start to approach competition like everyone is a sparring partner, regardless of whether or not the other person is on your team or not.

Do you see how this turns you into building other people up by being better yourself?

How does this apply to a footballer? They should train and practice with the idea that elevating their game will make those around them try harder. Yes, he will beat the other team when they play. But after that game, the other team members will see gaps in their own game. Thus, elevating themselves because of one person's ability.

How does this apply to Programmers? They can write such thorough code with every User Story met, exceeded, and tested. If you have a guy on the team doing this, then no fucking way is anyone else not at least trying harder.

I think we all can think of ways we are not being our best. Probably because there is not enough motivation to do it.

Well, now you are not doing it for you.

You are not being a dick.

You are doing it to improve others.