5 Reasons You Need To Get Out Of Competition & Into Creation

It’s quite possible that you’ve slipped out of creation and into competition if you find yourself:

• unsatisfied with where you are in your life.
• unfulfilled by what you’re doing.
• burned out by the daily grind.
• and/or anything else that makes you dread waking up every morning.

We’re all creators, every one of us. You create the life you’re living with every action you take and every choice you make. You create your schedule, your belief system, your relationships, your work, your happiness, and on the list goes. But if you turn away from creation of your own life and turn into competition with others, well, that’s when you find yourself comparing, lacking, struggling, disheartened, and on the negative list goes. Competition comes in two forms: healthy (think sports, friendly wagers, motivational tool, etc.) and unhealthy (oneupmanship, jealousy, shaming tool, etc.).

Here’s why you need to change your mindset away from unhealthy competition and free yourself:

1. Competition is about scarcity, creation is about abundance

Scarcity is the belief that there’s a limited supply, not enough for you, and so you’ve got to knock others out of the way to get yours. Abundance is about there’s enough for all of us, you’ll get what you need right when you need it, you don’t need to worry. Competition will have you fighting for a share and full of anxiety; creation will have you focusing on what matters to you and doing it.

2. Competition is about impressing others, creation is about cultivating joy

When you try to impress others, you only end up enslaved to their opinions; you end up tweaking who you are or what you do to satisfy other people. When you cultivate joy, you find what makes you feel the most alive and you do that, regardless of what anyone else thinks of it. Competition will have you boxed in by the limitations of others; creation will free you to be yourself.

3. Competition is about proving to others, creation is about proving to yourself

Proving is about self-worth, self-confidence, and self-esteem. When you look for others to mirror those things back to you, your sense of self will always been in the hands of someone else, fragile, easily swayed. That’s not an empowered place to be. That’s not a place you want to find yourself at all. When you prove to yourself, you control what you choose to believe about yourself, you empower yourself to believe in your own abilities, tenacity, intelligence, and the list goes on. Competition will have you doubting yourself, creation will have you building your faith in yourself.

4. Competition is about the end result, creation is about fulfilling yourself

The end result of your efforts is rarely under your control. You can plan, prepare, practice, etc. and still not get the outcome you want. Creation is about enjoying the journey on the way to the end result, so that way no matter what happens in the end, you had a good time getting there. Competition will have you frustrated, anxious, disillusioned, etc. from hanging on so tight, creation will have you at ease from letting go.

5. Competition is about the ego, creation is about the soul

The unhealthy ego is all about accomplishments to boost how others perceive you; you don’t allow yourself to make mistakes, to fail, to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. The soul is all about connection and belonging as you are; you connect with your own self, what you really want, who you really are and/or want to become, and you let yourself try and experiment and figure it out as you go. Competition will have you stuck, either not moving forward at all or in a loop of endless achievement for the benefit of others; it will stunt you. Creation will free you to explore, screw up, and come at it again from a wiser perspective; creation will allow you to progress and grow and move forward into the person you want to be.

So will you get out of unhealthy competition and instead create something today?