MOTIVATION : YOU TOO CAN COMPETE WELL ! BUT, HOW ?

Competition has been the buzz word wherever you go. Day in and day out, we are engaged, knowingly or unknowingly, in a rivalry race trying to outsmart others to achieve success in life, maybe, at times without knowing what that success really means to us in terms of a sense of fulfillment or a feeling of happiness.

Many a times, the competition is so cut throat that we find it very difficult to cope up with the situation.

Notwithstanding, in our eagerness and compulsion to succeed by hook or by crook, we fail to understand that each individual has his own weaknesses and strengths, potential and capacity to perform.

When no two persons are biologically similar, how can they be same and similar in delivering the same results, when subjected to undergo some test or the other in day to day life?

Please enjoy and emulate what these lines try to convey: “There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.”

Though we know, yet forget to appreciate in practice that every individual is a unique entity having diverse levels of knowledge and skills. As such, the competition always is fundamentally with ‘self’ to become better and to enjoy the fruits of improved productivity by getting the grammar of life right.

There are thousands of examples of great and successful personalities, past and present both, from different fields of activities, who proved by their own making that self- improvement is a sure way to achieve both success and happiness in life.

Nobody can deny or dispute the fact that every improvement starts with 'I' and to ensure that to happen, the first step to embark upon is to undertake an objective self - ‘SWOT’ analysis. Here, as you might know, 'S' stands for Strength, 'W' for Weakness, 'O' for Opportunity and 'T' for Threat.

You must jot down on a piece of paper your present status in respect of all the four parameters. Then, make reasonable assessment of your capacity to perform to the optimum level for consolidating and then improving the positives and for diminishing the negatives with a well-formulated strategy and action plan to move towards your own goal of life.

In Lord Buddha's golden words, "Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back and choose the path that leads to wisdom."

Learning and acting for improving one's own performance should be a continuous process, that is to say, competing on regular basis with your own old self for definite value addition.

Recently, while talking to students in his own inimitable style on the monthly Radio Broadcast 'Mann Ki Baat', Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi exhorted the young listeners to compete with themselves and use every examination as an opportunity to understand and test themselves so as to ensure their betterment on a regular basis.

Narendra Modi cited the example of Sergei Bubka, the renowned International Pole Vaulter who broke the World Record for Men's Pole Vault 35 times and also broke his own record 14 times. Modi said, "You should set a standard for yourself and test yourself …"

So, as Howard Cosell rightly says,

“The ultimate victory in competition is derived from the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your best and that you have gotten the most out of what you had to give."

As always, I'm keen to know what do you think on this subject. Hence, request you to post comments to share your views and experiences.
( Published in Sep.'16 issue of "Pratiyogita Darpan")

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