challenge yourself

Some people despise and fear competition, and some managers can misuse it. But, if viewed correctly, a healthy dose of competition can keep you on your toes, make you ratchet up your game, and inspire growth. In other words, competition can challenge you to “be all that you can be.” And competition as part of a team can help you learn to work with others to succeed.

The trick is to compete with yourself to do better.

Seeing someone else succeeding at a higher level or producing work of greater quality doesn’t have to lead to envy or jealousy. It can inspire you to grow, to explore, to learn more, to try harder. This is positive competition in action.

Instead of feeling bad because someone may be doing better than us, we can up our game because we feel inspired and motivated. Sometimes we’re inspired and motivated out of fear—fear we may lose our job or the account. And sometimes we’re inspired and motivated because we admire quality and the rewards of success and want to produce quality results as well.

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong used this type of challenge-yourself-competition to good effect. When it came down to it, he knew he couldn’t control his competition in a race; he could only control how he performed. So he used his competition to motivate himself. He studied what they were doing, and when he saw they were doing well, he used that “fear” to put his own training in overdrive—and was amply rewarded for his hard work. At his retirement party, he thanked his competition for motivating him.

It’s the “run your best race” philosophy. And in order to run your best race, you need to be in top form. You need to continually challenge yourself to improve and not get complacent.

Try to learn from someone achieving more than you. Maybe they could mentor you. In that way, competition melds into collaboration, and then you and your company will see the benefits.

Things to remember

· Learn from your competition’s achievements as well as their mistakes. Don’t see him or her as the enemy. Remember, there may be a time when even the fiercest of rivals need to ally to face a bigger battle.

· Differentiate between outside competition (other companies that you compete with) and inside competition (the workplace). Keep internal competition healthy by using another person’s success to motivate you. Don’t follow a “destroy” your competition philosophy because then you’re “destroying” a co-worker, and it takes many people to make a company successful.

· Look for mentors to challenge you to better your performance, and be a mentor to others.

· Focus on the big picture and view getting results as being good for your department and company, as opposed to being good only for yourself.

· Keep an up-to-date record of your achievements and be able to communicate your overall value.