Compete With Others

Walking life alone gets you only so far. Your mental fortitude and individual physical ability can carry you through life—to a point. If you want to achieve, you can move alone and still reach your goals. If you want to achieve and continue following a path of achievement, you will need the help of others. You will need the natural competition that emerges when you interact with others to forge the keys to unlock the internal chests of higher ability that are stored deep within you. Without the competition of others, you will struggle to realize these chests exist, let alone be able to open them. In competition with yourself, you are one person with one set of abilities. In competition with others, you are a different person with a whole new set of abilities.

Clydesdale horses are amazing creatures. Individually, they can pull up to 8,000 pounds of weight. If you strap two of them next to each other, you would expect them to pull double the weight, or 16,000 pounds. Competition causes an amazing physical reaction. When they are together, they can pull 24,000 pounds of weight, 3 times more than what one can individually pull. They are in a competition to not let the other one down. They are in competition to each be the alpha on the sled. Competition unlocks abilities stored deep within.

In the realm of college football, many of the best teams have the most highly rated freshman recruiting classes on a yearly basis. This means that the best teams, with the best players, are always adding the “next” group of best players. Many of these freshmen are turning down offers to play day 1 at other schools in order to compete to play as a sophomore or junior on a better team. The reason they turn down day 1 playing time is because they believe they will become better players in the long run by competing against the best on a daily basis. They sacrifice an immediate payoff of playing time in search of the potential that competition with others will pull out of them. At the same time, older players have to look over their shoulders because the next batch of best players is always right behind them. They cannot get comfortable. They must compete. Iron sharpens iron.

The thought process that you can compete against yourself and reach your absolute maximum potential for your life is flawed. It is a fallacy. Competing with yourself, you know one set of strengths, you know one set of abilities, and you know one set of reactions when hardship is faced. When faced with someone who is better than you at something, you will naturally find a new set of strengths. You will want to compete and achieve. You will want to try and beat them. If you fail to beat them, you will learn the most lessons and will feel fulfilled and satisfied by the effort you have produced. These lessons and feelings of fulfillment would not be possible if you continued on the solo path. You will come back stronger through the experience of competing with others. Others unlock the extra potential and ability within yourself. Compete.