Competition and Growth: Three Benefits Of Competition

Who doesn’t love competition?

Everybody competes. Whether that’s in the business world or in playing a sport, competing helps you level-up to hit your goals. There is an old saying by Steve Jobs about the importance of competition, “You can’t look at the competition and say you are going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you are going to do it differently.” 

It’s important to self-evaluate your actions and ask yourself, “How can I get better?”. That’s the beauty about competing — you are constantly being challenged to improve.

HERE ARE THE 3 REASONS YOU SHOULD LEAN-IN TO COMPETITION:

1. LEARNING WORKS BETTER WHEN YOU COMPETE.

In the business world, it’s important to compete with your peers because learning is a social game. In sales your number one priority is bringing in revenue for your company and if you end up falling short you are able to look yourself in the mirror and adjust. It’s the real way of finding out how you can get better.

2. COMPETING HELPS YOU BUILD AWARENESS.

In the sports world, competition matters a lot, it can teach valuable life skills, increase self-esteem and positively shape habits that increase quality of life. We need to inject the same opportunity into our day-to-day lives at work. The fact is your biggest competition is yourself, period. And, as a big Mets fan I was brought up hearing a phrase that always stuck with me, “You and only you can determine how far you want to hit a baseball.”

3. LEARN THROUGH STRUGGLE.

We have a saying here at 1Huddle, “People learn through struggle.” If you aren’t struggling…how do you know where to improve? It’s no secret that people love to play games, and for me Super Mario was my favorite growing up. 

I knew every character and what their strengths were because I got addicted to the challenge of beating a level. It was in the struggle that I learned and worked harder.

COMPETITION IS POWERFUL!

And, the presence of competition is especially visible in the choices that customers make every day. Customers look at a world of competition and then eventually make a choice. 

Here is a fact, people buy from people they like and you attract the best customers by improving your confidence, having the ability to reflect on your mistakes, and adapting to new changes. All of this comes from healthy competition and you don’t need to be the most talented in the room to compete. But, you have to compete.

I will leave you with this quote from someone who knows a little bit about competition and growth, Michael Jordan said,

“You have competition everyday because you set such high standards for yourself that you have to go out every day and live up to that.”