Quote on How Your Competition Isn’t Other People—It’s You Versus You.

“Your competition isn’t other people. Your competition is your procrastination. Your ego. The unhealthy food you’re consuming, the knowledge you neglect. The negative behavior you’re nurturing and your lack of creativity. Compete against that.”

Unknown

Beyond the Quote (311/365)

Your competition is your previous self. It always was and always will be. You can choose to compete against other people, but ultimately, it should only be used as a tool to better compete against who you were yesterday. What place you get or how you end up compared to others should always be mentally discarded.

Here’s the problem when you don’t discard what results from a competition and take comparisons/ places to heart: you lose the battle against yourself. Why? Because if you don’t, your ego wins. And your ego, when you boil it all down, is your real competitor in life. It’s not really you versus you—it’s you versus your ego. All day, every day.

Think about it. If you win and you take that comparison to heart, what does that do to your ego? It inflates it. It makes you feel better than. It instills a feeling of complacency, superiority, and completion of the task at hand. And how do those outcomes serve you long-term? They don’t. They have the opposite effect.

And on the other end of the spectrum, what happens to the ego when a loss is taken to heart? It deflates the ego. It makes you feel less than. It instills a feeling of inferiority and can negatively affect self-worth and self-esteem. And those outcomes don’t serve you long-term either.

What about the competitor who nearly won? The competitor who was close to winning, but didn’t for an obvious and surmountable reason. That competitor is much more likely to refocus on themselves and the work that’s ahead of them. Their ego doesn’t necessarily inflate. Their self-worth isn’t wildly affected. They simply refocus on improving for the next time. And that is an ideal outcome.

Competition, ideally, should act as a mirror that you can use to better see, not your outer reflection, but your inner workings. Unfortunately, many people don’t see their inner workings when they look into the mirror of competition—they see their ego. They see all of their faults, flaws, and weaknesses compared to all those who won. They see all of their strengths, talents, and greatnesses compared to all those who lost. And they let both distract them from what’s most important—what really matters—the work.

At the end of the day, what could be more important than the work? The work is the journey; the work is the adventure; the work is the process through which you shape your identity and improve as a person. And anything that distracts you from that work, that daily progress, is the enemy. It’s the daily battles against procrastination, junk food, laziness, social media, distractions, negativity, hate, and narrow-mindedness—all influenced by the ego—that’s the REAL competition.

So, my advice to you before you compete, would be to first learn how to see past the ego and into your real self. That should be the prerequisite. Because if it’s not, competing may end up causing more harm than good. Once you can win against your ego, then everything in life, competition or not, can become a joy and a constant source of feedback for improvement.

It doesn’t matter if it’s on a gym, on a stage, in a ring, in a hall, in a park, in a room, in a car—each can provide you with mirrors for improvement. But, be warned, because if your ego is leading the way, then everything can lead to your downfall and regression. The mirrors will be tainted with comparison to others and from that perspective, no outcomes will serve you. But, when you change how you see and can drop the ego, all outcomes will serve you. All you’ll do is win, win, win, no matter what.

In a Tweet:

As soon as you compete against other people, you lose.

Competition should always only be against yourself.

Specifically, you vs. your ego.

Ego magnifies winning into arrogance and losing into self-pity. You always lose.

Want to always win? Drop ego and always learn.

— Matthew Hogan (@MattHogan123) November 10, 2020

---

Read Next: Sarah Lewis Quote on How A ‘Near Win’ Could Be Better Than ‘The Win’

---

Are You Serious About Moving Forward in Your Life...? Our Guides Are For You. 👇🏼