5 Life Lessons I Learned From Competitions
Competition has been an important part of my life. I’ve been doing competitions for roughly ~10 years. I started with mathematics competitions, failed miserably, promised to do better, and went revenge on programming competitions.
I’ve won some awards here and there, but also lost a lot and a lot of competitions in the process. It’s been a long journey and I’ve always tried to keep track of my achievements, so you can check out my LinkedIn profile for the list.
In the near future I’ll probably do less competitions and retire, and that’s why before stepping out of the game, I wanted to share 5 important life lessons I learn from competitions :D
Summary
In summary, I’ll share with you 5 life lessons:
- Maximize Your Effort in Achieving Your Dream!
- Make Friends with Outstanding People!
- Dare to Leave Your Comfort Zone and Take Challenges!
- Don’t Be Afraid to Fail!
- It’s Never Too Late to Start!
Let’s discuss details of each of those lessons!
Maximize Your Effort in Achieving Your Dream!
When you’re trying to achieve your dream, whatever it is, Maximize Your Effort!
What does it mean by maximizing your effort?
It means you need to sacrifice a lot of time and work really really hard.
In the context of competitions, when you are trying to achieve a title in a competition, remember that you are COMPETING! It means that you are not the only one trying to get that title! That means you can’t be less than the average person, you can’t be the average person, and you can’t be a little bit better than the average person, you need to be far far better than the average person and be the best!
Even outside the context of competitions, it’s always better to have more effort, because the more effort you put in, the more great things you’ll get in your life.
Imagine you’re in a cave full of infinite golds, and you have a limited time of 1 hours only to get that gold, then it only makes sense to maximize in getting as much gold as you can.
So apply that to your life! You have limited time here in this world, maximize your effort!
I remember when I needed to work very hard and sacrifice a lot of my time. I needed to train in my spare time, at weekends, at late night, on holidays, all for getting better at competitions.
I do feel exhausted and stressed doing all of that, but in the end, it was all worth it, and I regret not working harder!
Make Friends with Outstanding People!
I can’t tell how important it is on how your friends will affect you. If your 5 closest friends are smoking then will you smoke too? Maybe at the beginning you won’t, but later in time, eventually you will be affected to smoke too.
If having a bad friend can make you bad, then it goes the other way around, having a good friend can make you good as well.
It means to be the best version of yourself, you need to make friends with the best of the best of people!
If your 5 closest friends are the most diligent people on earth, then you too will be a diligent person!
If your 5 closest friends are the most hardworking people on earth, then you too will be a hardworking person!
If your 5 closest friends are the most successful people on earth, then you too will be a successful person!
I remember back when I was in high school, I didn’t have a lot of friends to help me in competitions. And when I was lucky enough to get into a good college, I then have amazing friends to help me in winning competitions and achieving a lot of my dreams. I realized that my amazing friends really does affect my life in the great things that I can’t imagine having without them, and I’m very grateful.
I think this is why in some countries like China, USA, and Russia, they have those kinds of outstanding people working together, it only makes sense for them to dominate in a lot of competitions in this world.
“The greatest leader are the one smart enough to have smarter people around them”
– Shaquille O’Neal
Dare to Leave Your Comfort Zone and Take Challenges!
When I was struggling to get better in competitions, I remember my turning point was to dare to leave my comfort zone and take challenges!
You won’t get better by only training for the stuff you already know, you need to work hard on the stuff that you are not yet familiar with.
The time when you train for the stuff you already know is when you want to specialize and gain speed on doing that, it’s good and all, but don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone!
By getting out of your comfort zone and taking challenges, you’ll gain something that you have feared all of this time, you’ll reach the next level of your field, and this will set you apart from all the people out there.
So get out of your comfort zone and try to work and learn harder things, the harder it is, the more challenging it is, the better!
“Everything you’ve ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear.”
— George Addair
Don’t Be Afraid to Fail!
I won my first mathematics competition when I failed more than 10 competitions, and it goes the same when I won my first programming competition, I failed a lot of competitions at first.
It doesn’t start smoothly in the beginning, and that’s normal!
Get better by trying and trying and trying. In those trials of trying, you may fail, and you may fail a lot and never win, but all of this failure is just a step for you and a lesson for you to be better.
Back when I was competing, I’m always more excited to fail than to win. Because compared to winning, when I fail, I always find something valuable to learn and I am always tempted to be better in the next competitions.
I think the most important thing to achieving your dream is to just try and don’t be afraid to fail!
Even if you didn’t get your dream you wanted, you will get something far better in other forms of your life.
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid to not try!”
– Michael Jordan
It’s Never Too Late to Start!
I started late both in mathematics and programming competitions…
In programming competitions, I needed to beat people that have started 3 — 5 years ahead of me, but did I back out? Nope!
I think being late in something has its own benefit, you have all of those people ahead of you to be a motivation and target to beat.
I remember targeting someone to beat that has already started around 2 years ahead of me, it feels that I am very far away behind, but I just tried to work hard and sacrificed more time, and I didn’t realize that eventually I can beat him!
It’s not about when you start, it’s more about the growth rate of your hard work.
If car A goes 20 miles per hour and car B goes 50 miles per hour, then even if car A started 30000 miles ahead, car B will eventually surpass car A.
So don’t be afraid to start late, because it’s never too late to start!
“My message is that it’s never too late. If it’s something you want to do or if it’s important to you, go for it.”
— Kim Reynolds
Final Words
First and foremost, I want to Thank Allah ﷻ, for He is the one that blesses me with all of this amazing opportunity!
Doing competitions has made an impact in my life a lot, but I’ve been stressed about it a lot though, especially in college, seeing a lot of other people doing more “benefit” stuff.
But it comes back to every person, I see competition as something really beneficial for me and a big target that I want to achieve, that’s why I don’t regret doing it.
And for you fellow readers, if you have something you want to achieve, whether it’s a competition or not. If it’s something beneficial for you, I’d say GO FOR IT!
That’s all for me in this one folks, I hope you all learn something and could apply this lessons in your life, thank you for reading :D
