From someone battling to get a higher rank in a company to a person seeking a better position in a ranking system of any type, seeing another person succeed in reaching for where you are aiming to be can be disarming and demotivating if viewed in the wrong context. You have to be prepared to view their positive movement in a way that doesn’t leave you mentally paralyzed and unable to continue your own efforts. Here is how to deal with the competitive pressure in a way where you can’t lose.
You Benefit Either Way
You need to view their competitive success in relation to your efforts in this manner: either they have taken notice of your efforts, and then got motivated into producing their own success, or they made their efforts in no relation to yours. In the first case, your efforts caused their efforts to come out the way they have, which means your role is just as relevant in the predicament. It may be that your competency serves as a threatening force that propelled them to produce something of quality. In the second case, their efforts had nothing to do with you or your efforts, which should be a sign that you should respond in the same way. If you had no impact on their competitive success, that is a direct example that you should be focusing solely on your own material.
Compare Only When It Makes Sense To Compare
The concept behind this way of responding to competitive success favorably is that you are more connected to others than you often think. Becoming disappointed by the success of others means that you are thinking their success affects your own chance of success. While this is the case when thinking of absolute comparisons, it ignores the strengths each person has. A competitor that has succeeded has found one or more of their strengths and implemented them, but their strength set is different from yours, so comparing your success to theirs in the same aspect is similar to the apples vs. oranges comparison.
Real Estate Example
You work in real estate with a group of co-workers that also are able to sell the properties provided to your group. One of your co-workers gets a special deal that leads to him selling a property quickly since he had a personal connection with the buyer, and he boldly points this out in front of the group while looking at you. You can look at his efforts as damaging to your own sales image, or you can realize that he thought highly enough of you to want to bring you down with his success. This is a sign that you are a contender he is worried about, and should motivate you further.
A Victory On Both Ends
If he wasn’t ostentatious, and had been respectful while being successful, it would be an item to be glad for as well, as he would be bringing the group up in reputability. This would be beneficial for the whole set of individuals in it. This is the kind of time where you should appreciate the person and their success.