Comments on: Your Main Source of Competition is Yourself

By: Armen

Armen — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:54:06 +0000

Hey Bud.

I hear you there. We have similar thinking at times and that is just fine, and yet we are also able to express ourselves differently.

Cool stuff there.

By: Bud Hennekes

Bud Hennekes — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:53:01 +0000

Girl Scouts honor I didn’t read this post before I wrote mine! Weird! Great tips dude!

By: Interview with Your’s Truly at TimelessInformation.com | Learn This

Interview with Your’s Truly at TimelessInformation.com | Learn This — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:32:00 +0000

[...] Your Main Source of Competition is Yourself [...]

By: Armen

Armen — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:42:44 +0000

Nick: I partially remember reading that part of the book, and that was a suitable connection to the material here. I had forgotten about his abundance point until this reminder. I have to reiterate that last point you bring up in another way as well, as competitors can be thought of as people on the same boat in the ocean. They can travel with us a long way, to the point where we realize that they weren’t our competition at all.

By: Nick Bosch

Nick Bosch — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:32:36 +0000

Very good article. Stephen Covey, the author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” preaches a similar path called the abundance mentality. He says that effective people view the world as abundant of all important life resources. He, like you, argues that one person’s success does not take away from yours. I like your article, it is tough to think with abundance in practice, but it is a good path to a higher life. I also like your viewpoint of competitors as team members, since they are trying to achieve the same goals, we can use each other and motivate each other to reach them.

Well done.

By: Armen

Armen — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:56:03 +0000

pelf: That is also a valid point to bring up, as comparing and contrasting with others could energize you to take more action. Looking to outdo your self from a past week is a surefire way to improve, because you will want to feel that improvement has occurred.

Raju: That is a clean way to look at it, as the goodness that others are sending out can be absorbed, and then you can focus on your own specific changes.

By: Raju

Raju — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:14:54 +0000

A very nice and apt article. I too believe in “Get inspired from someone better, but try to better yourself everytime”

By: pelf

pelf — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:05:05 +0000

When I was an undergrad, I made it a point to be better than my classmates. I was so “afraid to lose” that I even tried to find out their grade point averages so that I could compare my points with theirs. And when I found out that I was doing better, I felt better.

Or perhaps I should say that competition with “other people” could also be good, and at times, satisfying, but you were right too when you said that we only compete against ourselves.

These days, I try to outdo myself in many ways. I want to be more productive this week than I was last week. I want to be a better daughter/sister/girlfriend this year than I was last year.

By: Armen

Armen — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:59:09 +0000

Celes: Your point about it connecting to perfectionism makes sense, since it leads in that direction when every error is looked at as one that is being avoided by some competitor in some location. That all-or-nothing mindset doesn’t mesh too well with the natural flow of events.

Mike: I think you worded it in a useful way, in that the impact may be there, but that it is lower than the impact we would have if we focused on our own material. It makes the choice of which thoughts to have easier to make, in a return-on-investment point of view.

By: Mike King

Mike King — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:22:15 +0000

Great article Armen, I think you are right how many people begin to look at competition around them, but in reality, they have less impact than the competition with ourselves as we apply that to our own improvements.