Tag: winning

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No Compete Clause

Are you a competitive person?

I wonder how quickly you were able to answer that question. As quickly as others might be? If you’re wondering, you probably are competitive.

I know that I am, even though it’s not across the board or evenly divided between things. Being honest, I would not say it was one of my better traits.

It’s lead to both positive and negative outcomes. I needed it for the workplace, to survive and thrive. But I don’t actually need it during my day-to-day life and often find that it works against me.

When I feel I need to be the fastest, smartest, most hard working, funniest or anything else, I’ve come to the conclusion…I lose.

If I pay closer attention, I can easily see that by feeling the need to be better, I set up a competition between myself and someone else and there is usually a clear winner and loser. Someone is always going to be unhappy.

I’m no longer a fan of this process. Instead, I’d like to find a way for everyone to be mutually satisfied.

I want to borrow an idea from the legal community. Instead of the title I’ve given this post of ‘no compete clause’, there is a legal document known as a ‘non-compete agreement’, whose purpose is to prevent an employee from competing with their prior employer. The employee is prohibited from certain things, such as revealing proprietary information or stealing clients.

It’s a way of limiting competition and that’s what I’d like to do for myself.

As I thought about this, I wondered how I could manage to rein myself in. I wondered how I was going to be able to go from being pretty competitive to valuing mutual happiness. It didn’t seem realistic to believe I could make this switch in one step, so I decided to break it down and start slowly.

I wondered, what if I choose a relatively short period of time and committed to a ‘no compete clause’, where I consciously decided to release any inner drive to ‘compete’ with anyone about anything? Could I see myself being able to do this? And, if I did, what would the results be? Would it impact me in a favorable way?

So, I decided to begin today and focus on this one simple idea and see where it takes me.

Early this morning I went to the YMCA to workout. Swimming in the pool drew my interest first, so I put on my bathing suit, grabbed my towel and flip-flops, and headed through the glass door to the pool. Incredibly, there was one open lane, so I jumped in and began backstroking my way to the other end. You might assume this free swim would not invoke any competitive urges in me, but that’s where you’d be wrong. Every time I’m in a swim lane, something inside me wants to get to the other end faster than the people in the lanes next to me.

I’m a reasonably good swimmer, but certainly not as fast as most of those at the pool. But ordinarily that doesn’t stop me from trying. And yes, there is a part of my brain that screams at me, saying, ‘what are you doing, they’re not racing you, you silly fool’?

Because I’m challenging myself to find a better way of moving through this life, and I’ve committed today to not competing, I tried to ignore the other swimmers. It was hard at first, but then something else took over my thoughts. The force that usually attempts to ‘win,’ released itself and gave in.

It surprised me and created real joy inside of me. I felt free, liberated from one of my customary competitive rules. I allowed myself to be aware that other swimmer surrounded me but was unconcerned with their speed or position. I allowed myself to feel the cool softness of the water, the strength in my arms and legs, the distance I was covering, the sensations of my environment.

It felt like winning without competing.

It encourages me to consider how this might apply to other aspects in my life. I wondered; how could I continue my idea of the ‘no compete clause’?

Now that it’s here, I think there will be numerous ways to use and profit from this. If this appeals to you, I hope you profit as well.

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Winning

What if there was no such thing as winning? Can you even imagine it?

How would anyone be able to establish who was the best at anything if there were no outright winner?

What would happen to all of the championships, the rings, medals, awards, belts, trophies? Wouldn’t they become meaningless?

This thought came to me one day and it intrigued me. I wondered what the upsides and downsides would be, ignoring for a moment that it was unlikely that others would accept it as a practical idea.

They might also be afraid that in addition to giving up the idea of winning, the concept could extend to grades, evaluations, promotions, and all sorts of other endeavors that appeared to be desired.

But I needed to sit with this because it felt like there was something important behind the scenes that was worth considering, even if just for myself.

I wondered what could be wrong with casting out the idea of winning and the flip side, losing. Who would it hurt?

I thought back to instances where I won something, a game, a contest, an award, a promotion. What did they mean to me?

In the moment, something about them felt good. They added to my sense of self-worth. I believed they altered others impressions of me for the better. Some of them increased my bank account or furthered my career. So, what could be bad about them?

Does it hurt others to have lost? Could it be said that if they tried harder, they could have been the winner? Could have taken the prize from me?

It occurred to me that there might be a handful or a thousand contestants, all trying their best to win and only one individual or team would end up in the winner’s circle. Does that seem fair?

How do all of those who lost feel?

Part of me had a very strong reaction to all of this. It’s the part that wanted to explore this idea. Its voice rose higher and higher until it had my whole attention. I had to ask, was any part of this ‘sour grapes’, the sensation that comes when you can’t have something, and you have a bad attitude about it.

The fact is you can’t always win at everything. Sometimes everyone loses unless they never compete at all.

When I finally reached this sentence it all became clear. What if life and all of the events we experience were not competitions, ways to rank order things, to establish winners and losers?

What if instead, life was collaborative? What if folks worked together? What would happen then? The part of me that started this whole thing sat up and took notice of this idea.

But another part of me joined in and pointed out that human nature always has an element of competition involved. That some amount of it is in everyone…how they look, how smart they are, how much money they have….and on, and on.

Where was this inner conversation going to go now? Was there some middle ground?

A new thought sprung up and a question formed.

What if it’s not about winning and losing itself but about what each of them mean to us? Is there a way to have a game, a contest, an evaluation, where the idea is to raise everyone up? To find ways to encourage, congratulate, reward, assist, appreciate, and acknowledge everyone’s innate value as a human being?

I’d like to think so. I’d like to incorporate this idea into my life and help others do the same. I’d like to think that winning and losing are not the point and that valuing everyone and the contributions they are capable of making is the point. I’m going to try to shift my mindset about this and see what happens.