Choose Your Competition Wisely

In the 90’s one of the fads were “No Fear” shirts. Most of them had a clever line of some sorts and then the words “No Fear”. I’m not really the type of person who cares about the latest fads, but one shirt caught my eye and I just had to have it. The clever line on the back of the shirt said, Second place is the first loser. I loved that line. I’ve never forgotten that line, I’m not saying it’s my life mantra, but it still crosses my mind. I thought of that line recently when I was listening to a podcast. One of the people said that you need to choose your competition wisely. He said that if your goal is to be a professional baseball player, your competition can’t just be the other kids in your class. If all you are is the best player in your class, that’s not good enough to make the pros. As soon as I heard that it made sense to me. I have been on a very long search for my five people. One of the reasons it has taken so long is that I want to find people who are always pushing me in some way. It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing, they know my standards and they know that I need to keep going. I worry sometimes that one of the reasons I don’t push myself harder is that I don’t really have any competition around me on a daily basis. How would I react if someone came up to me and said they were coming for me? What would I do if, after they said that, I watched them over the next few weeks and they did everything I did, but they did it better and more often? What if over a period of time, every time I read a book, they read a book. Every time I listened to a podcast, they listened to two podcasts. If I wrote 500 words a day, they wrote 750. What would I do? How would I react? Right now, I don’t believe that person exists at my job, so I’m completely safe, right? Let’s say that I am safe, does that mean it’s ok to stop or at least slow down?  What if I have a weakness, but it’s not keeping me from being on top, do I really have to work on it? Why can’t I just let it slide for right now, until the time comes that I really need to work on it? Every time you try and improve in a specific area it takes time and effort. If I am already a top performer, why do I need to spend even more time and effort to improve something?

         If this is you, you have two choices. One, you can go somewhere else that is bigger and you are now a small fish in a big pond. Or two, you can change who you view as your competition. What does that mean exactly? For me, it means that my competition is no longer another person that I can compare notes with. My biggest competition is now the voice in my head. The voice in my head will now tell me what someone else is working on. In my head, my competition has already talked to all his people for the day and given them goals and expectations. If I want to compete, I need to go out and do the same thing for my people. In my head, my competition planned his day ahead of time and he already knows his priorities. He got to work early, and instead of talking to everyone, he got started. So, if I want to compete with him, I need to plan my day and have my priorities long before I walk in the door. In my head, my competition isn’t perfect, but every single day, he takes time to work on his weaknesses. If I don’t spend time today in self-reflection, he is ahead of me. If my competition is focused on his diet and he is working out every day, he has more energy than I do. That means that when I am sitting down and taking a break, he is out there working on his goals. I’m drinking pop, he is drinking water. He knows the production numbers, I’m behind because I was talking at the water cooler about a tv show I watched over the weekend. My competition has his five people that push him and he meets with every single one of them on a weekly basis to check in. I’m still stuck at probably two and a half people, and I haven’t really ever officially told anyone that they are in my circle. When I look at everything from that new point of view, I’m no longer on top. I have lots of areas that need focus. I have the tools that I need to do my job and I have the skills to improve. I need to start using all of them. The time has come for me to step up and go to the next level. It’s one week into the new year and I am already behind. My competition had his post up last night. He is working on today’s goals, not finishing up what he didn’t get done yesterday.