Competition Curiosity
A few key points to grasp you in at first, (I am aware that these nuggets will be the extent of some of your reading, so I’ll try to make them as sticky as possible to honey trap you in. With any luck you might then instead choose to read further).
Putting great people in a room doesn’t necessarily dictate the acquisition of great competition success; to facilitate the required cohesive scaffolding to attain such achievements, (both in team sports, or in terms of the support system around an individual athlete/those of whom they are surrounded by) one must provision even the most astute and talented individuals with a purpose, a structure and a mission. This is a consideration we must remember before talking on any finer detail of competition. We must also realise the often-overlooked false choice between competition and cooperation. One habitually perceives the fellow competitors as competition…not as opportunities for growth. The people of whom you are running/lifting/throwing against are the people indeed of whom you are trying to out-do, however they are your biggest and most accessible opportunities for growth and furthering your own achievements…if you choose to look at them as such. In the same sense that just plonking people in the same room doesn’t create success, simply beating someone in a race isn’t always all it takes for continued, progressive and repeatable success in competitions… nor life. Remember this as we move forward.
Within one’s individual approach; mindset and aptitude to compete remain both very hard curve balls of which we must acknowledge, account, dodge, catch and then juggle with. And they differ for both men and women, and it all relates to how wiling we are to take risks. Broadly speaking; women calculate the risks. Men ignore the risks instead adopting more of a, ‘f*** it, let’s try’ mentality with less filtering prior. We’ve all seen examples of it. There remains a very real and very influential difference within the neurochemistry and biological make up that dictate how the genetic coding and gender of a participant will all have an influence on one’s risk taking tendencies...of course these can then be either encouraged or trampled respectively by one’s environment and surroundings. When asked the question; ‘Do you want to compete or not’, responses speak for themselves. Male; >70% yes, contrarily; women; 30% yes. Women will far more frequently asses the risks ahead prior to deciding if competing is, ‘worth it’ or not for them. It can be visualised more shrewdly when we actually dissect the question at hand and its inherent flaws that open up the vast disparity between the two. The question is not, ‘can you’, or, ‘how successful will you be if you do’... but do you, ‘WANT to’... constitutional difference. Considering risks, repercussions and chance of failure (is it worth it, weighing up the odds) VS jumping right in taking the risk and reframing the mindset to consider what you could acquire in terms of learning and development as opposed to what you may lose is a hurdle we must bound before we even start to compete. Before even that, we must contend with our genetic tendency to do, or not do, so.
Developing this mental snow ball of one’s inner thought processes throws up another noteworthy switch that this time seems to remain more proportionate between genders. It is one’s ability to switch one’s own perception from that of which perceives something as a, ‘Threat’ to instead one that is desired as a, ‘Challenge’. Why I emphasise this point and bother studying it ad infinitum...? Well, this simple mental shuffle around amounts to actual physiological changes that can make either detrimental, or wondrous changes to the outcome of one’s performance in a competition. Such changes include;
huge changes in amount of blood pumped out of the heart, (some studies even cite a 2l output difference)
improves HRV, (there’s not many a time within the health and fitness industry that I will say HRV is enough of an influential factor without being a fancy fad for the il informed to peacock their excel spreadsheet skills)
blood vessels dilate
burn stored glucose
increase testosterone
increase adrenaline Vs noradrenaline
reduces cortisol
…e.g you can perform at the top of your s*** hot capacity, or not.
Another fascinating facet expanding further than male and female difference relates to the neurochemistry of the aforementioned risk taking, (thus, debatably so, the perception of the risk at hand… if you don’t think it’s a risk then is it? If you don’t think it’s a risk then will you respond in the same way? Ooo it’s a tree falling in the woods kinda scenario); There remains debate as to the influence of it, however one could argue that differing levels of cortical arousal between people, (a genetic factor) mean that some simply, ‘want more stimulation’ and thus generically tend to take more risks to satisfy that craving and reward sensation...suggesting it’s not always a learnt skill and there remains some intrinsic differences that may make it an easier/more difficult leap for some than others. (Extroverts remain slightly lower in dopamine, and get more stimulation and excitement from other people...logical eh)
To delve a little deeper into dopamine further elaborates the risk, reward seeking behaviour. It is a neurotransmitter, often depicted as the chemical expression of rewards. However, my input yelps out at you to not underestimate its influence on motivation whilst on this path of attaining the ‘goal’ of which it’s release is more often associated. I emphasise to you that motivation IS the goal, thus its role is integral in both the voyage on the way and the goal. From this we can see why some things seem a let-down or anti-climax once you actually get to them... the dopamine enjoyed along the way far supersedes the final end point. Why? Well that’s simple; we’re not built as humans to end and be done... we’re built to strive, continue, grow and develop on forwards... so enjoy the journey, enjoy the skill acquisition and enjoy the sensations as you go thus reframing the end point into just a, ‘pause’ to recalculate, re-appreciate and re-evaluate your next pilgrimage of IV dopamine.
So, what’s the most important factor within all this? Well, I believe it instead to be a much-overlooked facet of many a personality…curiosity. Curiosity, if it can be coaxed out and maintained, when strong enough, will be the driving force out of your own comfort zone to discover what could be next, what is the answer and what is that infamous pinnacle of performance success. It will be the thought controlled by you, (controlling your own thoughts and beliefs, you will see, is a running theme within my writings) that will force you to question; what else you will need to do in order to succeed, what aspect you want to succeed in, what the people at the top of their game are doing better than you that means that they are already there, and right there the curiosity of what the top could behold serves as motivation enough to get there. Furthermore, it prevents missed opportunities or roots of growth that were previously unexplored. With this one is able to gather the ability to hone the skills more commonly associated with the extrovert to the use of even the most extreme introvert. This is true for those who are inept at the task at hand as it drives them to wonder what they can do in order to acquire the required skills that are seemingly lacking, however it also remains true for the naturally gifted within any of the sporting discipline, (although not restricted to sports, the same questioning approach can be used for life, jobs, relationships and anything we humans fail dismally at so frequently, and yet so unnecessarily). It’s hard for the talented to pursue the journey... whereas it was easy at first when they were young. When young they naturally take out the opposition with one eye closed, but oh s***, when everyone else starts training and putting in the necessary miles to reach the elite, all of a sudden they can’t keep up, they can’t swan up last minute and top the leader board before slouching back on the sofa to resume game of thrones…all of a sudden drop out rates commence, and suddenly the slow kid in the back is taking home the swag. By opening their eyes to curiosity makes the naturally talented question
where next they could be, as opposed to being abruptly faced with an insurmountable brick wall of work to do of which they are not used to and unfamiliar with. The same can be seen within disciplines of weight loss and muscle building… yeah sure you can lose weight easily at first when super morbid obese, (without sounding flippant, many will admit that it is simply a case of a few less kebabs a week) and it’s easy for a newbie to do a few bicep curls and poof Popeye move over, (or so it seems), long term however, as anyone who has embarked upon such a journey will tell you, it starts to get harder, a few more hours in the gym are required, and a touch more thought behind your programming is required.
Are we giving away success too easy, both in relation to how, ‘easy’ it is at first to be successful, and how, ‘easily’ we are rewarded in competitions for simply taking part, (often, especially among younger participants, receiving the same medal/reward and praise as those who won)? Are we teaching the resilience and curiosity from a young enough age of what is required to reach such heights (as mentioned the ease of initial weight loss doesn’t continue to the latter stages... the first gold medal for ‘participation’ at sports day doesn’t represent the gruelling monotony of Olympic Training)? Should we instead be fuelling curiosity within youth athletes... what else can I do? What are my limits? How can I break through them? Where do I want to go? Who do I need to surround myself next to in order to help me strive towards that?
Something the elite, (the Head of the company, the Olympic Champion, the Heavyweight champion all a like) all have in common is that they are ALWAYS curious as to their own next challenge, idea and progression. By rewarding ‘participation’ we quash the integral and pivotal difference between good, excellent and elite... we nullify the deeper investment in the 1% margins that, at elite level, are the one’s that make the difference. By protecting the self-esteem of those who, (in blunt reality), failed by rewarding everyone with the same prize it takes away both the ambition to reach the top as well as the lessons learnt from the bitch slap fact that some people are better at things than others; both in terms of genetics and talent as well as the mental ability and dedication to get good at something. Sometimes people need to learn that simply turning up isn’t good enough. In order to attain the highest achievements, you’ve got to pull your socks up, your current state as it is, is not good enough and more work is needed in order to get there. Softly softly mummy move the f*** over... we need to fire up the curiosity to learn from those who did receive the top spot and do better than us, not accept contentment at participation. The irony is that this preservation of one’s self-esteem through this manner tends to backfire and can be seen to instead only heighten the expectation of winning... if you’re always expecting to come home with a medal then it’s only showing kids that you will win at everything you do... as adults we know this is not the case. It negates the need of self-evaluation, self-reflection and self-improvement if were always winning and never questioned on our bad days as to why we didn’t succeed.
The learnt ruggedness of the reality of the requirements of excellence; to not only attain it... but then to repeat it. You’re top in the country... okay... but are you curious as to why you’re not top in the world. Do you have the mental skills to enable you to get there... is the insatiable curiosity there as to a) what it would be like, how you would get there and even more so, what would be next? And b) do you have the physical and mental training support in place to enable you to just, ‘do your job’ to get there? (All ties in to my initial ramblings about great people in a room.)
To put this all in a far more breviloquent abstract; A strong psychological framework and perception of the growth vs reward complex will dictate both your aptitude to compete and your willingness to put in the leg work in spite of genetic or environmental tendencies.
