How to unleash your competitive spirit and win
10 nuggets of wisdom from a competition freak
I’ve always been very competitive since I was a kid. From playing video games with my brother, to student competitions, to my first job in sales in the corporate world — winning was a pure shot of euphoria no matter the magnitude of the activity.
Some nights keep me up wondering if this insatiable spirit was innate in me or did someone mold me to be like this. A bit of both is likely the case. I grew up with two university professors as grandparents who treated me like any of their students — nurturing but ever-challenging. One thing that they did instill in me is the virtue of self-initiative. I remember when I was in primary school, my grandma — a biochemistry professor, taught me about the parts of a cell but intentionally left out the functions of each part. I took it upon myself to read the next couple of chapters in my biology book because I was dying to know what the mitochondria did (the powerhouse of the cell! I wonder if it’s competitive like me too). Though having self-initiative is important in unleashing your competitive spirit (which I’ll explain further below), my grandparents didn’t pressure me to get the awards I’ve garnered, nor did they incentivize me to win at anything. They were the spark to the competitiveness burning inside me but it grew naturally by itself as I grew older and did more and more competitions.
So how do you unleash your competitive spirit? How do you go above and beyond to win? And more importantly, what’s the formula of success in winning?
What I am about to detail is my own personal journey from the various competitions I’ve partaken in from my student life up until now in the corporate world. This may not be applicable to you entirely but I hope you can get a nugget (hopefully golden!) of wisdom from my tips!
1. Happiness is the primary reason why we all want to win because winning is also growing. You may say that the reason to want to win is to gain the prestige, the rewards, or to feel the thrill of the competition but ultimately, we all want to win to be happy and we are the happiest when we are growing.
Gretchen Rubin from her book — the Happiness Project, expresses it clearly — ”Happiness happens when we are in an atmosphere of growth.” Acknowledging this truth helps wire your brain to think about competitions as a great source of happiness and at the same time — an avenue for you to learn and be better.
2. You have to do it for someone or something. Many studies have shown that having motivation in whatever form, leads to higher productivity and greater chances of success in accomplishing a task. In addition, having motivation to win ensures that your competitive spirit won’t die out midway. My late “Lolo” (grandfather) was my biggest motivation in most of the competitions I’ve been in. Win or lose, he would be the first person I would call and excitedly or dejectedly announce the results to. His praises or comforting words would always echo in my head.
3. Be obsessed about winning… or get very close to obsession. Now this might be a bit of a controversial tip but I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t spend countless hours playing the winning moments in my head on repeat. Doing this was like a nitro boost to my engine — a massive push to get me ahead of the competition and cross that finish line.
In the beautiful words of M. Cobanli — ”Good requires motivation, great requires obsession.”Just keep in mind not to go overboard and lose yourself in the process.
4. The more entries you send, the more chances of winning. This is where self-initiative becomes crucial. You can’t win if you don’t join any competitions. It is rare for competitions to just be handed to you — university competitions sometimes assign or nominate students who have to join, or your job in corporate automatically entitles you to it such as in sales roles. Most competitions however require you to muster an ounce of courage and send in your applications.
In my junior year in university, I joined with different teams in four business case and marketing competitions in a single year. I lost two, placed in one and only won the top prize in one of the competitions. I realized that I really can’t win it all but the more I try, the more chances I can win. In my last year of university, I probably joined around 8 competitions and came out as the winner in 4 of these. Always keep in mind that it never hurts to try. In fact, it hurts way, way more when you regret that you didn’t.
5. Know the rules of the game. You have to play the game and you have to know how to play the game really, really well. All competitions have a criteria to win — whether it’s a detailed breakdown of assessments or just a simple pointing system. Once you know the criteria by heart (and obsess over it!), come up with levers for you to increase your possible scores but don’t stop there — ensure that you follow-through and track your scores as much as possible. A mantra that I keep in my back pocket at all times is “What gets measured gets done”. Tracking your scores in each criteria keeps you laser-focused on what you need to do to win.
Knowing also how much your score needs to increase to win is even more important. I am embarrassed but proud to admit that during my sales stint in my 1st job where I came out as the number 1 sales guy of the year, I could tell you my score for each criteria at any given point in time, and how much more sales or volume I needed to make to keep my top spot.
6. Size your competition. Most people will say that doing your best is always enough, but in competitions, sometimes your best may not be enough. Comparing yourself to others is not really a good thing but then again, you can give 110% of your best effort in a marketing presentation but if your competition brings in a fiery 120% of effort, a professionally-edited audio-visual presentation, with matching tablet handouts to the judges (hello IMC competitions!), you’ll still lose.
Knowing who you’re up against, tells you the gap in your resources and capabilities to win. In turn, this tells you how much more work you have to put in to seize a hold of that trophy. I joined with a team in the Google Online Marketing Challenge (GOMC) which is an annual global digital marketing competition where thousands of teams in schools across the globe join yearly. We were up against teams in schools hundreds of ranks higher than ours in the QS World University rankings. Heck, even MBA students joined the competition! Being aware of this truth however was vital to our success — we were humbled by our peers but we also knew then, our strategy to win which was to put forward the most unique, local and heart-tugging story that would outshine thousands of entries. Besides that, the prize of a free trip to Googleplex in California made all those sleepless nights completely worth it (See tip #2!).
7. Be a team player. Most competitions, if not all, are played through a team. Whether you play the part as the team leader or as a member, you have to learn how to collaborate. Think of the team like a cell — you each have a role to play to get the cell to function well (thank God I had the self-initiative to study my biology book for this example!). As early as now, figure out what you’re good at and keep on sharpening on that expertise. When you get into a team competition, work out with your group on how your expertise fits with everyone else’s.
8. Surround yourself with competitive people. Competitiveness is contagious! Look at your group of friends or colleagues and find out the one who treats everything like a competition (but maybe not that friend who get crazy at beer pong). Try and partner up with your overly-passionate friend in some competition and just watch as you are naturally drawn to his or her competitive spirit! I was lucky enough to have my college bestie be as competitive as I am and also be my teammate in most of the competitions I joined back in the day!
9. This brings me to my formula for winning! Most people already know the success formula which is: Effort x Talent. This applies as well to winning but in my version, I think the formula can have a minor addition:
(Effort + Preparation) x Talent. Being over-prepared increases your chances of winning drastically!
Going back to our GOMC experience, before the team even started the competition, all of us were preparing for it. No one knew how to do Google AdWords nor how to make a professional website so my teammates and I took it upon ourselves to learn about these. We took Google AdWords and Google Analytics courses online. I applied and got a summer internship at Ogilvy & Mather for digital marketing. Another teammate learned how to code and develop a website just by watching youtube videos! Looking back, if we hadn’t prepared as much as we did, we might not have won that competition.
10. And lastly, savor your win! Basque in your achievement because you did it! You deserve it! But always keep in mind to be humble and give appreciation to everyone who helped you along the way. Don’t forget to make new friends and remember the journey of the competition.
There is more happiness and enjoyment in the path to your win rather than the fleeting moment of being on the pedestal.
