Naturally Competitive - Competitive nature

The great champions in sport, according to my research were competitive as far back as they could remember. They talked about chasing siblings and friends around on the ski slopes. Competition was always fun, often just beating friends and siblings in a made up competition was the goal. Competing was a game for the very best during the early stages. Yet, was this tendency to be competitive part of their DNA and present at birth or does it result from nurture and their environment?

When my daughter was a little girl she was on the swim team which is part of my business. After her first meet the head coach was handing out ribbons and once receiving hers she quietly went over to the trash and threw out all of her non-first place ribbons. That was a surprise to both her mom and me. I felt it was okay that she was upset that she did not win every race and what then mattered is what next. My approach was to support her competitive desires and to ultimately find out what went wrong in the races where she did not win. At a young age learning how to improve and respond to things that do not go your way is most important. Developing an understanding of the proper attitude, response and approach to competitive events and their results is most important.

The greatest champions in sport are not only competitive with themselves, but being the one who wins or the best on any given day is always the ultimate desire. However, that comes over time, but for a child it is a little different. Simply telling a child, who is upset about something that “it does not matter” is not the best answer. Imagine something that you find so very important causes you to get upset when things do not go as expected then those around you whose opinions that you value the most tell you it does not matter when in fact it obviously does matter. In fact, everything matters and what is most important in the case of a young child who is not happy with an outcome is to make that result a teaching moment. Parents hold lots of power over how their children develop.

The idea of being born competitive may be true to the extent if a child has a strong personality, but developing a competitive nature is a learned trait. It takes time and learning for most people to develop a healthy and successful competitive nature. In the example using my daughter, I was happy that she was not pleased with her results as it showed desire. The next step was for her to learn the proper response to falling short of expectations. With kids and anyone for that matter who is learning how to compete developing the right response to an outcome matters. In the case of children it is the effort that matters. We are all influenced by our family, friends and peers as well as the general environment and in the right combination a child grows up able to successfully navigate the competitive world and for adults it is possible to change and improve our response to things that do not go as hoped. We may be born with certain personality traits, but developing a healthy and strong competitive nature is something to be learned and practiced.