Does competition stifle improvement?
Last night, I was running a mid-distance workout.
On my third split, I had a thought come to mind that I jotted down after the workout.
When I used to run competitively in high school, I resented running.
It was extremely painful because I was very competitive.
I wanted to be the best long-distance runner in my school.
It was constant competition against my teammates.
Running for the most part is an individual sport. Yes, there is a team scoring aspect.
But, I only really cared about beating my PR.
What did the competition result in? Well, it made me fierce.
– It made me never miss a practice
– It made me maintain my body (stretching, icing, etc)
– It made me improve my times
This meant that competition instilled…
– Consistency
– Big picture
– Incremental improvement
But, what competition did not help with…
– Mindset
– Self-improvement
Constant competition made it very hard to focus on myself. And, why I was doing it.
I was always thinking about my running performance relative to other people.
Key word – relative.
When I improved, there was another set of runners that I wanted to beat
It was a never ending loop.
In that, I never focused on competing against myself.
When I now run recreationally, I only care about how I improved relative to the day before.
I find more enjoyment, yet pressure to improve. Although, the pressure is definitely nowhere close.
When we add pressure, we typically achieve more, faster.
But, over the long-term, competing against yourself is the only thing that is consistent.
How other people perform is irrelevant to how you can perform.
The only thing that matters is how your performance changed from time X to time Y.
Bottom-line? I think that competition is quite important because it gives an unmatched level of commitment, but in that process we focus on everyone but ourselves. Is this sustainable over the really long-term? I don’t think so. Self-improvement is the only thing that affects us. The solution? Maybe layer in a little of both.
