Compete against yourself

Competition is part of career life. We compete often with others for jobs, for awards and so on. But the one competition that should be ongoing is to compete with yourself. Because it helps you to improve your self-awareness, to raise your standards and to bring out the best in yourself.

Whether you are starting from a ‘low base’ or from stardom, there’s more you can achieve and become. So competing against yourself should not be permission to go live in a ‘bubble’ and assume that whatever you do is okay. Your ideal self is working towards your full potential. If you don’t yet have a success circle, create one and let them help you.

If you’re looking to become successful, ‘good enough’ is not good enough. Too many excuses will hold you back. Put the vision of your ‘ideal self’ and the highest standards side by side and work out a plan for how you’ll get from where you are to attaining those high standards. It’ll require great discipline and diligence from you. But you can do it.

There’s a lot one can plan for, but sometimes opportunity comes early or unannounced, so it helps to be prepared. That job you want might suddenly become available, or a new exciting project that needs a leader might come up. You can’t prepare for everything so know what you are aspiring for so that you can map your preparedness plan and compete well.

The best you can be in an area you are not strong is ‘average’, so focus on your strengths, honing them, leveraging them and using them to propel yourself forward. When you succeed with your strengths you know you can do even better and with less effort. So if you don’t know yet what you’re good at, figure it out quickly.

What is your key strength? How are you honing it further?