Why You Need Friendly Competition

In Medium and in life.

Let me tell you the reason my earnings have tripled here on Medium in a month. More than the number of posts, or the number of followers, it has all been thanks to one person. A stranger I’ve never met and whose name appears every morning in a chat bubble on my phone telling me a number.

Before we get to why a stranger is texting me numbers. I tell you why friendly competition is the best way to up your game with any skill.

Once you are up against someone in a race. You both will be checking on each other’s progress. How much you’ve earned, how much you are publishing, how much you are doing. That’s the single most important thing you need to better any skills. Constant practice, constant effort.

You can have anyone to keep you accountable. But a friendly rival will motivate you to work as no one else can. Because winning, even if it is just the title of ‘winner’ or for more claps or whatever forfeit you have to go on, it’s a great motivator. That will make you work a couple of hours on your craft, perfecting it, trying to be the best you can.

If you are dragging a bit and the others are on the lead that will inspire you. Because you will have seen how that success is made. It won’t seem like a far away, impossible thing to achieve, but the exact steps have been laid out for you to see. This will inspire you even more. Seeing the success of others behind the curtains is more motivating than a stranger having a hugely successful track record with no clue how they really do it.

This is why nowadays people give up on their pursuits so easily. They see some Instagram success or sports success and think it will be easy and straight forward. After all one day they were complete strangers, and the next their name was on the map. But, no one knows exactly how each step of the way has been for them. That’s a fleeting kind of inspiration, one that comes and goes.

Related posts:

I decided to learn how to design Apps with Android Studio in September and had zero knowledge of java. At first I followed some YouTube Tutorials, trying out the projects, jumping from one to…

Tahukah Anda terdapat kasur yang bisa meningkatkan kualitas tidur? Jenis kasur memory foam direkomendasikan oleh para ahli sebagai kasur yang bagus untuk mendapatkan tidur yang berkualitas. Kasur…

Robots are terrifying. Some see R2D2, I see Terminator and HAL… likely working together as they plot against me and the generations ahead. The future is definitely here, with a rate of acceleration…