What is a healthy level of competitiveness? Why do some people look at everything as a must win situation? Why do others take little or no interest in winning?
As usual I may be stirring things up, but seeing the differing degrees of competitive application within my football group today raised these sorts of questions.
For me, a healthy level of competitiveness is measured only by one’s desire to win. Some people need to strive for victory because it’s their only gauge on how much they’re improving or whether they’re achieving their goals. Some people participate simply for the interaction, the challenge and excitement of whatever sport or pastime they choose, regardless of the result.
Striving to win can improve the skills you need to achieve victory because in order to keep one step ahead of your opponent you’ll need to fine tune those skills required to win. Competition, by definition, is to gain superiority over your opposition. One powerful tool in coaching is having players compete within their own groups in order to motivate them further during their training. There are often many good outcomes from healthy competition within groups but this too has to be controlled.
Competition during training is only a method of motivating individuals to perform at their best while trying to win. At times though, competition can have collateral damage when those who don’t achieve the win start to look for reasons or others to blame. Then comes the constant reminder that training is a time for mistakes and learning how to improve, so that those same mistakes are not made in order to achieve a better outcome for your next competition.
Playing any form of sport, whether it’s in a team or as an individual, brings out the best and worst in us all. Now that I’ve had time to think about our competition today, and the fallout that occurred at the very end, I realise that my entire group and I learned a valuable lesson in team play and understanding limits within the group. We finished today’s training session with a powerful message on how far to take a winning mentality because emotions and reactions can vary so much from one individual to another.
In the end our 11v11 match had two winners, the orange team (4-3) and my entire group because our competitive edge gave us one more life lesson.
Know your team mates’ limits, as well as your own, because we’re all striving to achieve, some of us achieve by winning the challenge and some of us achieve by enjoying the challenge of learning to improve.
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