Play full out and let the numbers speak for themselves
Do you sometimes feel like you’re achieving more, doing more than your colleagues at work? In life? You’re pulling your own weight and some of the weight of others you work with, and you all get to share the credit.
Is it fair when someone else falls behind and isn’t pulling their own weight, but your successes cover their mistakes and unproductive tendencies?
What do you do about it?
Grumble and keep it to yourself? Yell at random cars in traffic to vent on the way home? Do nothing and let it build up inside?
As Phil Gerbyshak puts it in his article “You are Your Only Competition“:
“Often, as soon as they see they seem to be producing more than another person, they slow down and let everyone catch them.”
So what do you do? You DO SOMETHING about it! Play full out!
I’ve been doing this for years and someone else finally gets it and captured it almost perfectly in Phil’s article. This isn’t a new phenomenon, this happens quite a bit in many circles.
Phil goes on to say:
“You are your only competition. If you’re worried about how much Sally is doing every day, how much Fred is doing every day, why Tina gets to do x and Jimmy gets to do y, STOP RIGHT NOW.
Start by thinking about doing YOUR personal best, every single day. Play full out for a month. If you really are head and shoulders better than your competition (if you’re reading this newsletter, you’ve already shown you’re smarter than the rest of your team), play full out for a month and really set yourself apart from your peers. See what your personal best can be. Ultimately that’s what you’re getting paid to do, is to improve YOUR best numbers, every year, every month, every week, every day.”
Anyone who has worked near me, alongside me or with me knows how I work. I’ve always played full out. I go 300 miles-per-hour on everything I do. I learn fast and move faster. I’ve been told I do the job of 2-3 or more people when I’m in the zone.
That’s a compliment and a detriment because once I fall back to doing the job of 1 person… me… I’m seen as being slow or unproductive. So I just reset myself and look at it in the context of competing to beat my own personal best.
When you’re out there running on the weekend, running alone… just you, your stamina, your endurance and your heart rate monitor. What else do you have to compete with?
You want to finish your run 1 minute earlier than yesterday, and then beat it again tomorrow. You’re not fighting all of the imaginary runners alongside you, you’re fighting yourself. The same applies to most sports, business activities, social activities and so on.
Phil closes with a similar last note in his article “You are Your Only Competition”
“You are your only competition, so start acting like it. Make today a better day, a greater day, by competing with you, and only you.”
Look at your life every day. Are you doing better than you did yesterday? If not, why not?
Start each new day with that in mind, and you’ll see everything begin changing for the better in dramatic new ways.
Char said on July 10th, 2009 at 6:29 pm quote
i really like the term “play full”, sums up a more Buddhist approach to life and work, or any relationship.
i am posting a link for the students visiting my site. i am always disappointed to hear about a lecturer or uni philosophy that encourages students to compete with each other, to learn.
it was only by focusing on competing with me and being playful that i made it through ongoing attempted bullying (by staff and students encouraged by staff) as an undergrad (and then post grad).
ironically, most of the hazing was because i encouraged other students to collaborate, not compete and to view their grades as personal signposting rather than a comparison with others.
one cannot paddle to unknown horizons if one is splashing in the shallows, clinging to the known beach and whinging about those seeking deeper waters.