Recognising healthy competition and further understanding where we may thrive or simply survive in the wrong conditions. How to get to know yourself whilst handling toxic players.

Recognising healthy competition and further understanding where we may thrive or simply survive in the wrong conditions.

How to get to know yourself whilst handling toxic players.

Theres this little thing in life. Its called competition. We start to become exposed to it maybe at big events or sporting days during our childhoods, and then it begins to permeate through our adolescence in peer relationships and into academia, for those who were lucky enough to excel in school or social environments. It can either make or break relationships. Ever been in a relationship with a competitive person before? Cause rifts between friends, families and nations and if left unresolved these rifts can turn into full blown end of relationships. It can be both inspiring and debilitating.

So how do we recognise which type of competition is beneficial to us and which one is energy zapping?

Personally, when I am around someone with a competitive edge I go back to the four pillars I advocate of learn through play, trust, environment and model and I consider where the place of competitive drive is coming from. Why does this person see me as threat to their success? Why is this person compelled to be “better” than me? What is the outcome of the friendship, or relationshit here? I think modelling from a place of compassion for a competitive person is hugely important to recognise that this competitive edge that they have, which may be expressed in places where there is an opportunity to puff one’s ego regarding their (presumably) improved ability to handle “life” is probably a behaviour which has been well practiced in a multitude of environments.

By acknowledging first from a place of compassion that the other person we are engaging with, needs to demonstrate their superiority to us we can begin to understand if this situation is of benefit to us or detriment. Is this a healthy competition or is it toxic?

Some of the signs of toxic competition might be an inability to separate away from “competition”, a leaking of competitive nature into activities that have no place in competitive environments, such as parenting and pursuing an activity solely for the purpose of “winning” without any actual enjoyment of the participating event.

If we apply these pillars to ourselves we can first recognise what it is that were benefitting from the activity were engaging with. If you’re like me, you probably don’t thrive under such conditions and find many scenarios that competitiveness raises its head as relatively repulsive.

Bragging about how fast your child passed their milestones? Not my thing, unless the function of the bragging is sincere, sorry.

So how can begin to establish boundaries around competitive individuals to create better autonomy over our lived experiences on this planet?

I have done a video post about this which you can find on my Instagram two to three weeks ago @Untamed__remedy of how to initiate boundaries to family and friend members, by advocating for your learner and being very clear in your communication.

Secondly, we can recognise the effect being in competitive environments is having on ourselves by checking in with our leaner’s/actor/pet’s experience and understanding whether the competitive environments we are placing ourselves into are to the detriment of our actor or to the benefit. I’m sure everyone can agree a little competitiveness in sports day event’s is ideal, but leaking over into sleeping through the night competitions and toilet training verges on the edge of unhealthy competition.

As always there is always a fine balance between being a proud parent and being a braggy parent and it may even be worthwhile to check in with our friends and family members to look for social cues as to how our enthusiasm for our actors achievements may be having on them, especially if their actor is further behind.

This is a situation I see so frequently in pet ownership of caregivers putting themselves through the mill because they aren’t quite where they want to be yet.

I’m sure everyone will also agree its definitely doable to have goals, dreams and desires but if this comes at an emotional cost the actor this is where competitive natures need to take a step back to reexamine the effect that competition is having on their own and actor’s lives.

In summary, competition in small doses can be healthy and definitely can be a driver to facilitate personal and learning growth, but too competition can be unhealthy and the nuance between the two may be very fine. Checking in with an actor is paramount and learning to read low level signs of stress is critical.

I hope this helps

 R

xxxxx