Championing Instead of Competing:
I get really excited when I have something in common with someone. Actually, I get really excited a lot of the time because I just have a champagne, confetti, sparkly kind of personality. So when I have some shared interests with someone, I get grand expectations for what our future friendship should look like. Unfortunately, not everyone else feels the same way.
I love having shared interests with people, and I’ve always been a “the more the merrier” type of person. But there’s some people out there who like to claim “their thing” and then want to have a monopoly on it and not let anyone else play the game.
Can I just say, this is a HUGE red flag. If someone isn’t hyped about having things in common with you, it might be because they’re wanting to be the only one who does that one thing, and they probably also want to be viewed as the best. Can we all just start saying “no thanks” to these people until they don’t exist anymore?
I’m a creative which is one of the most competitive spaces you can be in. People rip off each others ideas, steal creative content, and people are super focused on trying to be the one who stands out from the crowd. But I don’t like to think of it that way. If someone likes my work, they’ll probably like yours, and if someone read my blog, they’ll probably read yours, and what if, together, we made such great content that the entire market was filled with more readers.
As writers, we all want people to read our stuff, so what if we all cheered each other on and didn’t see it like if I gain a reader you lose one?
If I gain a reader, we both have the potential to gain more readers. It’s called an abundance mindset and I’m all about it.
Healthy competition in your career is great. It’s awesome to have people in our lives who challenge us and spur us on and push us to be better--I live with a dude I call my husband who does that for me on the daily.
But in friendships, I need people who can both challenge me to become the best me, but also celebrate me when I’m crushing it and not let that crush them.
I’ve had friends in the past who get really threatened when someone succeeds in one area faster than they do, or with greater success, and when they let a competitive spirit enter into a friendship instead of saying, “Hey you rock, I’m proud of you,” it will quickly become destructive for everyone.
I hope you can spot that overly competitive spirit faster in people than I did, because no one wants a friend who responds to your success with comparison and competition.
Let’s also not be that friend, let’s remind people of what makes them awesome and get excited about it with them!