Competition is a good thing

Growing up I played a lot of sports. Maybe you did too.

One of the things I never did was care about the opponent.

It helped that it was much more difficult back then. You had to read the newspaper, manually collect the data, and analyze it yourself. Just having to read things put an end to that.

Regardless, what was the point? How was spending time on my opponent going to make me a better player?

I would also add I never really cared about the refs or judges, the fields or tracks, or the weather conditions either.

A lot of folks do focus on this extraneous stuff though: in sports, at work, with politics… Why? Are they somehow going to change all of these things in their favor?

Are you going to be able to control your opponent, time the sun to come out at kickoff, or get mistake-free refs?

Some people argue things aren’t fair or that someone cheated.

I thought competition was about being the best?

Who cares if someone is cheating, you are going to win. Who cares if it is not fair, you are going to win.

If you are the best, why would anything mentioned above have any effect on that? Plus if you did focus on this stuff in order to control it aren’t you the one who is actually cheating?

Competition allows us to be great. It drives us to get better everyday, but in order to do that you need to focus on what you can control - you.

The only thing you can control is yourself.

Stop wasting your time on the stuff that is out of your control.

Be the best and nothing else matters.

Remove the distractions, get clear and focused, and start winning.

In the short term, blaming someone or something else might feel good when dealing with your shortfalls, but achieving your goals will feel great forever.