My Thoughts on Competition

Tug of War (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Today I want to share my thoughts on competition.

I am no stranger to competition. To get my place in medical school, I had to fight off (on average) nine other candidates. To get my current job, I had to fight off almost twenty other candidates (it took me two attempts to secure that job by the way). What may surprise you is that I dislike competition.

As you can see from my Challenges page, I'm contemplating doing a Tough Mudder event. (Yes, I am slightly mad!) What I find refreshing about it is that it's not a race. In fact, some of the obstacles are insurmountable without help. They believe collaboration is superior to competition, a belief I agree with.

A lot of people don't try things principally because they don't think they can compete. They say to themselves that they can't possibly be the best so why bother? If you step back a moment and think about it, it's crazy. If I felt that way about running, I'd never run. I definitely can't run 5km in 15 minutes like some of my fellow parkrunners! I still run. That's because I don't gauge my results relative to the elite runners. I gauge my results against my own previous performances. Yes, I want to improve and see how good I can be but I don't need to be the very best.

The only person worth competing against is yourself. You might not be the smartest, strongest, fastest person in the world but in your group you're bound to be the best at something.

I think it all goes back to our society's fear of failure. Being last is not a failure if you complete the course. The only true failure is never trying. Don't let competition stop you.