Healthy Competition - Striving for Excellence Without Shame
A tale from 1700’s China tells us about a failed scholar, Fan Jin, who tried to move up the social ladder by passing the very competitive imperial exam.
Fan Jin was already 50 years old and thirty-four years of unsuccessful attempts at the imperial exam had taken their toll on Fan Jin. His father-in-law, Butcher Hu, looked down on Fan Jin and often beat him because he brought shame due to his failures.
One day after being humiliated by Hu, Fan Jin took the exam once more driven by both resentment and a flicker of hope.
After starving for two days, Fan Jin’s mother told him to go to the market to sell their hen and buy some rice to eat. In the meantime, the exam results arrived.
Fan Jin passed the examination! When he heard this news, he went insane. A frantic idea arose that someone Fan Jin was fearful of could bring him out of his mental state. At Fan Jin’s mother’s pleading, Hu slapped him to bring him out of his insanity, even though Hu was so dreadfully apprehensive of hitting him now that he is revered as “one of the stars in heaven”.
Suddenly, Hu feels his societal standing shot up because his son-in-law won, and as a result, he also came ahead in the status competition.
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Is competition good or bad, healthy or unhealthy? It’s more complex than a yes or no answer. There are many nuances of various factors.
Compete against oneself
Benchmarking - There are many occasions when it’s helpful to measure improvements. If we have high blood pressure, we want to see it decrease over time. A noticeable change can serve as a warning sign. If our goal is to run a 5K or a marathon, we want to see an increase in speed and stamina.
Track progress - To achieve a goal, we set checkpoints and milestones of our future selves, to keep us on track. This competition is between ourselves on paper and ourselves in reality, which helps us reassess our goal and strategy, and make adjustments as necessary.
“Should have” - When we romanticize an ideal self or ideal status, our view of reality can become skewed, and our lack of appreciation of the blessings we do have can rob ourselves of joy and self-compassion. We beat ourselves up for failures, lose sight of possibilities, and miss growth opportunities.
Competing against others
Striving for excellence - Since the dawn of humankind, we have raced against each other to see who can run faster, climb higher, or hit more goals. The winner sets the bar for the next round of competitors to beat. In the professional world, competition stimulates learning, innovation, and providing improved product or service packages to customers.
Identity is driven by winning - When the competition’s only aim is winning without learning from the journey, then people resort to doing anything at others’ expense. From individual to organizational level, stealing, lying, sabotaging, and withholding information, are all part of the means to beat their competitors.
“Not enough” - We live in an information world that makes us feel constantly inadequate. Brene Brown described it aptly as our “culture of scarcity”. We never measure up when comparing with others, from beauty, wealth, and power to impact. Social comparison was once limited to our immediate circle, but now we can easily line up against the whole world through social media. This results in a feeling of shame both at an individual level and organization level, that prevents us from reaching our full potential.
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So how can we keep a healthy spirit of competition without falling into the traps of chasing perceived perfection and a destructive mindset? In the thought-provoking book Daring Greatly, contrary to conventional wisdom, Brene Brown pointed out in order to live wholeheartedly, we need to be vulnerable.
When we lean in our uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure when we compete, instead of feeling shame when we fall short, we embrace our worthiness and gain motivation to press onward to continuous learning.
