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10 Reasons Why a Successful Career Is Built on Competition

a Successful Career Is Built on Competition

For most people in the workforce today, having a reliable career based on a sturdy portfolio is an important aim in life. Although it was considered cool to not care about doing good in school during our teenage years, when it comes to our jobs it’s safe to say that many of us want to achieve great things.

When you’re good at what you do, the rewards you reap are not only financial. Sure, you will earn a considerable paycheck in time, but you will also feel fulfilled and happy. Not much else in this world can replace the feeling of professional satisfaction, which is why staying at the top of your field is so important.

Why Competition Is Good

Even though many people still perceive competition as something negative, it can actually help your professional growth when pursued correctly and respectfully. Nobody wants to see you evolve more than you do, which is why you need to ensure that that happens no matter what. Here are ten reasons why a successful career is built on competition.

1. Workplace Benefits

Each place of work motivates their own differently. Some companies offer better benefits packages to higher-performing employees, and engaging in healthy competition with your co-workers to gain them is the safest way to succeed.

Make sure to pick someone as well-equipped as you are to go against and always stay civil about it. The key is to shine without making any enemies. After all, no reward in the world makes working in a tense environment worth it.

2. Motivation Boost

According to Harvard Business Review, there are several studies which confirm that competition helps motivate employees towards pursuing their objectives. By always staying on top of your game, you will soon prove that you’re the best in the business.

However, it’s important to note that many companies take this to an extreme, which in turn might push workers to try and achieve their target in unorthodox ways. Such a development needs to be avoided at all costs.

3. High-Quality Effort

If your professional aim is building a career, then you should already know that putting in high-quality effort into what you do is essential. No matter what your occupation is, you need to give it your best one hundred percent of the time.

Naturally, there are some periods of time when you won’t feel like pushing too hard. This is exactly where a healthy dose of competition comes into play. By motivating you to shine the brightest, you won’t lose your edge even on your worst days.

4. Better Results

Competition leads to better results

Always putting in high-quality effort leads to better and better results. And, as it is expected, this is one of the most important things that will help further you along your professional path. You don’t have to aim to be the best in the firm from the get-go; in fact, competing just against yourself at first is highly beneficial.

After you can safely affirm that you’ve outdone yourself, it’s time to move on to even bigger goals. Find someone whose work you admire and allow their success to fuel yours. But be careful not to overstep your boundaries and turn this experience into something negative.

5. Sustained Activity

A study conducted on 135 participants and published by the American Psychology Association (APA) has shown that those who believed they were in competitive contingency with others stayed active for longer. They exhibited a higher level of task attractiveness and lower ones for one another, which in turn raised their efficiency.

Maintaining a coherent and continuous workflow increases the quality of your results. Sustained activity is thus the surest way to building a successful and fulfilling career, and the best way to achieve that is by being in competition with your colleagues and thriving off of it.

6. Adequate Goal Setting

Everyone who strives for success in their field knows that setting adequate goals is an important step towards alpha status. Being in a contest with someone who is as dedicated as you are will give you a better understanding of what those objectives should entail.

Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that your aim shouldn’t be to copy your co-workers’ agenda. You need to have your own targets and work hard to reach them in your own way. Competition isn’t about mimicking someone else’s strategy, it’s about finding a better one.

7. Clarity of Thought

A natural and beneficial consequence of adequate goal setting is clarity of thought. Knowing exactly what you need to do and when you need to do it to reach your target has wonderfully positive effects on your work ethic.

On top of that, it gives you great self-confidence and the aura of a power player. In fact, this is what all successful men have in common: a go-getter attitude. And you can’t have one without knowing what it is exactly that you must achieve, so make sure that your frame of mind is one hundred percent focused.

8. Innovative Solutions

Competition leads to come up with innovative solutions

In turn, clarity of thought leads to a penchant for coming up with innovative solutions. Furthermore, having someone else’s work as a means of comparing your own helps you see the bigger picture, which will make for more imaginative and effective problem-solving.

Developing such skills is essential for advancing in any field. No matter where your work, your employer will notice only when you have specific qualities that benefit their business, and this is one that is true across the board, from education to constructions or the food industry. Cooperating with your colleagues also helps on this front.

9. Improved Cooperation

Forbes Magazine outlines the advantages of cooperative competition. Rooted in Game Theory, this practice usually refers to the dynamic between two separate companies operating in the same field, but it can also be extended to cover workplace relationships.

By applying this method, team members working within the same firm bring the best out of each other, while at the same time maintaining a healthy and productive atmosphere on the job. This not only benefits their own personal growth but that of the company as a whole.

10. Fast Advancement

Growing in the right direction through a healthy dose of competition on the job won’t go unnoticed by your superiors. Thus, your chances of getting promoted are increased. When you are passionate about what you do, others can see it too.

By channeling all your best efforts into always bringing something new to the table, you will help the firm evolve. And when it evolves, it makes room on its board for resourceful people who know how to prove their worth, so make sure you are among them.

Conclusion

While growing up, many people start dreading competition. And while it is true that being in a contest with others can be damaging in certain situations, when it comes to building a career it has great potential. Workplace competition brings you amazing benefits, boosts your motivation and raises the quality of your efforts, thus leading to overall better results.

Furthermore, it ensures that your activity flow is constant and sustained. It helps you set adequate goals and promotes clarity of thought, which in turn helps you come up with innovative solutions in situations that require problem-solving skills. As long as you keep the atmosphere behind it healthy and respectful, the benefits are many.

One way to ensure that this stays true across the board is by pursuing cooperative competition with one or more team members from your company. This ensures that you bring the best out of each other at all times, and in the grand scheme of things it might even mean that you get promoted faster in the company. Good luck!