Every human happiness or sadness in life comes from action. But it is in our actions
where we can find that happiness (or the contrary). That's why we do it.
This quote comes from Aristotle's Poetics, a book that was published in 335 a.C.
Now we can do the math on how many years have passed since then, but this timeless idea is more
relevant than ever today. How many things in life put us into motion?
So why is this important? I think that since we are little everything forces us into action.
Learning how to walk and taking your first steps, going to school. And then, not long after that, starting your
first job, and then your first business or project. And on and on and on it goes.
And I can't think of any of these things that don't involve competition.
Our instincts tell us to go bigger, to do better.
To go ahead and try to come out on top of whatever we are trying to achieve.
And who's not up for competition?
Look at these pictures and tell me if you can't feel the power that they transmit.
But why do we feel this spirit of competition so deeply?
Why is it that our self-consciousness tells us that we need to compare ourselves to others
in order to feel good about our own growth.
And it goes without saying, English is not an exception in this competition driven world.
Obviously, feeling the need to improve ourselves is a positive thing.
You don't want to just spend your life lazing about on the couch.
Whether intentional or not, we as humans,
are always learning. We are always taking information and applying it to our own life.
It was just so transformative in the sense it taught me, uh, just grit.
Really being able to dig deep, work hard, go through failure.
Work with other people.
Find mentors. I had great
mentors. I had great coaches.
My brother was a runner too, he's a really good runner and
he was an important mentor. He still is.
But I had coaches who were really great leaders as well.
So, if you have ever been in a competitive environment, like Justin was on the running team,
you probably also noticed that it gave you a drive that helped you to reach objectives that you
thought were impossible.
However, this competitive spirit is not always a positive thing.
When you start to drown in constant self-criticism it can be paralyzing.
The voice inside your head tricks
you into believing that those negative thoughts define who you are,
so you can't move forward.
Every time you want to take action on something, that negativity surfaces.
You beat yourself up.
I remember a student of mine, Pep, that was consistently improving his english by reading
a lot and watching tv series and movies.
And although he understood all of it and he was
really enjoying the process, he felt that he still needed to improve the way that he spoke the language.
Pep worked as a social media manager, so one day he decided to make a video of himself
speaking English about something he was truly passionate about and posted on his Instagram.
One day, he came to me saying that he read on one of his comments that although he was a good
entertainer and content creator, he shouldn't do it in English because he didn't speak it very well.
My advice to him was to not feel bad, because he was improving and learning with each passing day.
And I shared with him this wisdom from Confucius.
I also asked him why this comment had affected him so much.
Pep told me that the negative comment came from a person that he really admired, who shared his mother tongue.
I'm sure that you can empathize with Pep, just as I did. That hearing criticism
especially from someone you look up to, can feel like a knife to the heart.
From that moment, Pep started to push himself and study harder than ever.
However, he also started to judge himself in
a way that was not very healthy.
Pep's competitive self not only wanted to succeed and speak English
more fluently, but he also started judging those around him that were on the same path as he was.
He wanted to be better than all of them, and he felt jealous of the ones that were ahead of him.
And then, Pep started losing focus on his job. He got so insecure about what he was putting out there,
that the quality of his content actually declined. He was trying way too hard to achieve perfection.
Let's take a look at the etymology behind it. If you Google "to compete", you'll see
that in modern English it is a synonym of "rivalyze" and "dispute".
However, originally "compete" comes from the Latin word "competere",
which can be translated to "to aspire together".
I am competitive, but I'm also an individual who, even though I like to compete, I also like to see others win.
So I'm not a person that wants to win at all costs. I'd like to win and see everyone else win, so...
Competition is not actually about who's the best. It shouldn't be an ego game.
Instead, we need to go back to competition's original meaning.
That striving together brings the best
out of each individual. And this is especially true when learning English.
We all need this language to survive and thrive in a globalized world.
So, we are all on our individual journeys to learn it and communicate naturally and confidently.
It should never be about who speaks the best.
Toxic competitiveness will always happen
to us at any stage in our lives. Comparing ourselves to others is part of human nature.
And on the journey to learn English, or learning anything at all, you will definitely run into it.
So, what happened to Pep? As often happens in our stories, he had to go through the deepest point
in his career to realize that one of the most important aspects of our lives is communication.
It affects our daily routines. It affects our moods, and more often than not, can help us
change and deepen our perspectives.
So, you're like, again, just trying to please other people because...
why do we want to assume a different identity? It's not that it's like this deep desire, it's
not that it would be, you know, our deepest passion or fulfilling our dream. Ultimately it's to fit in.
Right? To not experience bias and prejudice.
So, uh, I think that, if we want to be complete we have
to come to peace with who we are, how we sound. And that is the secret for real freedom, the way I see it.
Pep started reading the comments again. And taking the criticism as an opportunity
to improve himself by taking healthy actions, instead of comparing himself to others and
trying to have his journey be and feel unnatural to what he actually needed.
Competition can bring us great motivation.
It can be a huge drive for us to move forward.
But it can also be painful if you
do it in the way that Pep did.
I'm still figuring out how I can fit competition into my own life in a healthy way.
I know for one, I feel better competing with myself, beating my own personal best,
than trying to compete with others.
How about you?
What role does competition play in your life?
And how does it make you feel?
It doesn't matter what environment I'm in. If I'm confident in my
abilities, I'm okay. And I also still have the idea of... I want everybody to succeed.
It's not a competition like I'm going to be better than anybody else, no.
A lot of our competitive sides are actually driven by a deeper need for perfectionism.
So if you feel like you have ever struggled from
perfectionism, then I highly recommend that next you watch this lesson.
Let's check out a clip from that.
So, the connection not perfection. The way I connect to that is I never want our
learners to feel that, right? I never want language to get in the way of human connection.
That's what that's all about. It should always be the number one goal. Is to maintain the connection,
so if you make a mistake don't drop your eye contact,
don't feel embarrassed, don't move away.
Look at the person in the eye and keep the connection going. It's up to you at that moment whether
you lose the connection or you keep it, right? So we have a lot more control than we think we do.