I love competition, I always have. But not for the reason people might think. Everyone assumes that if you love competition it’s because you always win. Not true. I have accumulated more 2nd – 5th place trophies than I care to remember, found myself on the “2nd team” more times than I’d like to admit and I probably fall flat on my face more than 70% of the time I try something new.
The fear of failure is the primary reason why people do not like competition. They’re afraid they will be branded a “loser” if they don’t come in first or even worse, if they don’t place at all. But the real failure is not recognizing that competition is merely a means of pushing yourself beyond your perceived limits by having a goal to move towards.
People who compete—be it with themselves or against others—achieve greater results than those who do not compete…fact.
Think about this for a moment. If you were in the hospital about to undergo surgery do you want a surgeon who competed to be recognized amongst the best in his/her class, who had a desire to be the best or one who wanted to learn at their own pace? Just like in any profession, sporting event, or life in general there is a top and bottom and to be at or near the top you need to be “in the game” so to speak. You won’t always win, you won’t always be the best but you will definitely be far better for trying and achieve your personal best in the process.
As I mentioned above I have a lot of 2nd—5th place bodybuilding trophies. But I can say with absolute certainty that from my very first competition twelve years ago until today, not a single year has passed that I have not improved my appearance from the year before regardless of my placing. I know I don’t have the genetics to be the very best but, to be better than I was previously and to compete and hold my own amongst the best is everything I could ever ask for, and that’s why I do it. Does this make me a loser?
We all need to get over our fear of competition and realize that competition is healthy. Look no further than the PURE PHYSIQUE 12 Week Fitness Challenge report on page 3. We could only have one winner, Mike Flannery, but everyone who got in the game saw results and many achieved personal bests. Even though Mike earned the title of Champion for this year we still had several winners.
You may have noticed that we recently put up a Leader Board in the studio. We did this for two reasons. First, we want to publicly recognize those who are putting forth their best effort and achieving their personal best. Second, we want to encourage a friendly competitive atmosphere so no one gets complacent. We expect to see EVERYONE’s name up on that board at some point because they’ve either lost a certain amount of body-fat or gained muscle over the course of a week or month, lifted more weight or lifted longer for a particular exercise, or achieved some personal best.
However, we’re not going to be like Little League and give every kid a trophy just for being on the team. While we do expect to see everyone on The Leader Board at some point we expect you to compete and earn your way onto it. We want to see you get greater results and killin’ it through competition.