Competition breeds excellence

A sense of self and personal growth that you set for yourself and enjoying what satisfies you. I am competing interpersonally in most everything interrupted occasionally by self deprecation humor that I use to disguise personal dissatisfaction. The competitive drive…I repress that as I think it annoys some. While many say they do not care what others think or believe of them. I certainly do. This thread seems to be about an I’m okay you’re okay moment.

As our testosterone level starts to slide downward that competitive survival tendency wanes toward the cuddly. That is how I see it. My testimony would be different any other time I am sure.
 
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"Competition breeds excellence"
Yes

Am I competitive? Yes and No

I am a perfectionist and a little ocd which can come with its own set of issues. If I'm cooking something, everyone might say oh this is amazing, this is the best chicken I've ever had. In my mind I'm going, well I messed that up, could of done that better, sauce is a little too salty, etc. Tying flies, if there's a feather not laying right, I'm gonna fix it no matter if it will fish just fine, or the fish won't care. This doesn't extend to sports, board games, racing, etc.. I could care less what team wins, I don't need to catch the most or biggest fish. Now if that's the goal, competition definitely will help you succeed. I guess I'm only competitive if it matters to me.

Maybe it's time for a trip down the vitamin isle....
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I'm definitely in the "hate to lose" camp in the vast majority of things in life, but fishing ain't it. Maybe it's because my origins in fishing were team oriented cooler filling trips where the only thing that mattered was the boats limit. When fishing I definitely get more stoke out of someone else's fish, and while it's hard to take a skunking while your buddy slays, that's usually an opportunity to fine tune what you're doing.

Now if you play jeopardy or darts or pinochle with me I'm coming for your fucking heart. Believe that.
 
Evan B said:
When I go fishing, I like doing everything I can to help those who go with me be successful, even if that means setting my own rod down. While I enjoy catching a lot of fish, I actually feel like a bit of a failure at the end of the day if I massively out-fish the others with me and did nothing to help them have the same success.
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Absolutely, same here. I would feel awful if I took some friends fishing and massively out-fished them.
 
Pink Nighty said:
I'm definitely in the "hate to lose" camp in the vast majority of things in life, but fishing ain't it. Maybe it's because my origins in fishing were team oriented cooler filling trips where the only thing that mattered was the boats limit. When fishing I definitely get more stoke out of someone else's fish, and while it's hard to take a skunking while your buddy slays, that's usually an opportunity to fine tune what you're doing.
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This resonates with me a lot as well.
 
Merle said:
Absolutely, same here. I would feel awful if I took some friends fishing and massively out-fished them.
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This is so nice!

I was going to reply that I’m not a competitive person at all, and if so it’s mostly against myself, ( as when i used to run, trying to beat my personal best or setting a personal goal).

However I just remembered this:

I play Wordle every day. I don’t have many talents but I’m good at Wordle There is a woman i know who used to date a friend of ours years ago. She was pretty nerdy and irritating in that she seemed to have this need to always be the smartest person in the room. She would often correct people, including their grammar. She made me afraid to express an opinion because she would always have some information she thought you needed. One time I asked her if she had a 150 IQ and she told me that she did.

I haven’t seen her for years but she used to be a friend of mine and my husband’s on Facebook. I deactivated my account quite a few years ago, but sometimes I checked in on my family using my husband’s Facebook page, mostly to check out photos of my great niece and nephew ( he gave me his password to do so). And I noticed this woman was posting her Wordle results. (The results link shows not the word, but how many tries out of 6 it takes to solve it.)

So each morning if i made a good Wordle (like three guesses, or it was a difficult word), I would ask my husband to check her results so I could compare mine. The first time i missed guessing it correctly I loved finding out that she too missed it. I had this need to beat her and her so called 150 IQ!

It’s my own little competition and she has no idea that I’m playing this game with her. So yeah, it’s pretty bad how jolly i get each morning when i find out i solved it in less tries than she did!
 
Evan B said:
I've had fishing trips and fishing friendships ruined over others' need to be competitive vs just enjoying our time together on the water. So this is one aspect of my life that competitiveness has no place in. An example from not too long ago was getting an invite with a friend on his drift boat for winter steelhead with another one of his buddies. We all had a fun day floating, not finding fish. Then at the last spot, his buddy hooks and lands a really nice hen. His statement when we row to the launch to take out was "Man, all that work for one fish. Just glad I was the one who got it!"

For me, that's just a shitty attitude to have, and one that really rubbed me the wrong way. Despite chatting with him up to that point about getting back out together, I decided he wasn't someone I wanted to fish with again just based on that statement.

When I go fishing, I like doing everything I can to help those who go with me be successful, even if that means setting my own rod down. While I enjoy catching a lot of fish, I actually feel like a bit of a failure at the end of the day if I massively out-fish the others with me and did nothing to help them have the same success.

And while I am not competitive by nature, I have conceded that I do need some level of competitive motivation to meet my fitness goals. So while I don't get obnoxiously competitive in that arena, I do allow myself to at least compare my progress and abilities to others to give myself personal goals.
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Oh no. Hopefully that wasn't me.
 
Canuck from Kansas said:
I don't know that I'm "competitive" but I am a bit of a perfectionist, I want to do things right, and if I don't get it right, I'll do it again until I do. I skied and sailed competitively in my youth and I certainly hated losing more than I enjoyed winning, so I guess that did make me "competitive"; however, I really don't participate in "competitive" endeavors any more, the need to beat others is no longer in me. Now when I do things, I do them for the sheer joy, and the satisfaction of doing it right.

Gotta admit though, love to catch fish on the fly when the spin and bobber folks are coming up empty, so maybe I'm not that pure after all ;).

Cheers
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I get this completely.
Hem said:
When I fish alone I NEED to catch one fish. I hate getting skunked. When I fish with others, I also need to catch one fish, but beyond that I like to see my friends have success.
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This rings true as well.

I sucked at ball sports, and wasn't competitive. I was competitive mentally and physically in individual sports, runner, triathlete and cyclist however. Not the most talented, but I loved the training and figuring out how to improve. Plus, if I could hear or see you suffer on race day, I always knew I could suffer longer and would put it down until someone broke, rarely me except like that day I lot my shot at worlds.
It's now me vs. the fish. I love figuring out how to catch them. The crappie this summer and whitefish have my current interest as a challenge. But it's me challenging me. When I'm out I also spend some time meditating and talking to God asking if I'm being the best person I can be. Mostly I compete to be a better me.
 
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Tom Butler said:
I get this completely.

This rings true as well.

I sucked at ball sports, and wasn't competitive. I was competitive mentally and physically in individual sports, runner, triathlete and cyclist however. Not the most talented, but I loved the training and figuring out how to improve. Plus, if I could hear or see you suffer on race day, I always knew I could suffer longer and would put it down until someone broke, rarely me except that day I lot my shot at worlds.
It's now me vs. the fish. I love figuring out how to catch them. The crappie this summer and whitefish have my current interest as a challenge. But it's me challenging me. When I'm out I also spend some time meditating and talking to God asking if I'm being the best person I can be. Mostly I compete to be a better me.
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I find my moral shortcomings show up in my cast. If I'm struggling with something and unsure if I'm in the right, my tailing loops let me know I'm off the path. I usually go home and start apologizing to the wife until my cast comes back.
 
I won't take my friends who are casual fishermen steelheading with me or let them know where I go (other than vague generalities). Does that make me competitive? *shrug*
 
Pink Nighty said:
I find my moral shortcomings show up in my cast. If I'm struggling with something and unsure if I'm in the right, my tailing loops let me know I'm off the path. I usually go home and start apologizing to the wife until my cast comes back.
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“Moral shortcomings” ? You must be talking about something else. ;) usually the regs determine legality
 
Pescaphile said:
I won't take my friends who are casual fishermen steelheading with me or let them know where I go (other than vague generalities). Does that make me competitive? *shrug*
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Eh, I think that could be different. I don't tell people about places or take them anywhere unless I know that they are the type of fisherman who is going to respect the resource and not blab to everyone or POST IT ON THE 'GRAM.
 
The one place in my life that I have NEVER felt myself being driven by competition is big game hunting and fly fishing. I do everything I can to make the people I hunt and fish with successful and I take great pleasure in doing so. Even at the height of my competitive bass fishing phase, if I took you out on my bass boat, I was going to do everything I could to make sure you caught fish....... outside of that, if it's not competitive, it's unlikely I'm interested.

I'm not afraid of losing, I don't hate losing, I'm not even sure how much I love winning, but I am 100% addicted to progress and I HATE mediocrity. I hate mediocrity so much that winning isn't fun unless I feel like I/We win by doing whatever it is as good as I/We can. I was that way as a player, in business, and I'm that way now as a coach. I HATE even being around mediocre people in competitive environments.

I never understood the idea of choosing to do something unless your intentions were to be anything other than awesome. I thought this was something that would temper with age like so many other things in my life. I have actually become less tolerant of it. I'm more aware of my intolerance and tactful in dealing with it but if we're in a competitive scenario and you are ok with sucking then I will cut that cord as fast as I can.

The best bass fishermen I knew came out of the biggest circuits. The best athletes I know will only train with athletes of the same caliber. When I was a CrossFit competitor the best dudes (I wasn't one of them) came from gyms that were full of dudes just like them. The best coaches I know come from the best leagues...it goes on and on. There is no doubt that competition drives excellence.

I have never been elite at anything, but I have always done my best work when I was competing with somebody who was elite.
 
Jojo said:
This is so nice!

I was going to reply that I’m not a competitive person at all, and if so it’s mostly against myself, ( as when i used to run, trying to beat my personal best or setting a personal goal).

However I just remembered this:

I play Wordle every day. I don’t have many talents but I’m good at Wordle There is a woman i know who used to date a friend of ours years ago. She was pretty nerdy and irritating in that she seemed to have this need to always be the smartest person in the room. She would often correct people, including their grammar. She made me afraid to express an opinion because she would always have some information she thought you needed. One time I asked her if she had a 150 IQ and she told me that she did.

I haven’t seen her for years but she used to be a friend of mine and my husband’s on Facebook. I deactivated my account quite a few years ago, but sometimes I checked in on my family using my husband’s Facebook page, mostly to check out photos of my great niece and nephew ( he gave me his password to do so). And I noticed this woman was posting her Wordle results. (The results link shows not the word, but how many tries out of 6 it takes to solve it.)

So each morning if i made a good Wordle (like three guesses, or it was a difficult word), I would ask my husband to check her results so I could compare mine. The first time i missed guessing it correctly I loved finding out that she too missed it. I had this need to beat her and her so called 150 IQ!

It’s my own little competition and she has no idea that I’m playing this game with her. So yeah, it’s pretty bad how jolly i get each morning when i find out i solved it in less tries than she did!
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*fewer*

Just being a competitive grammar dick, Jojo.
 
I’m the worst: I’m super competitive but somehow have convinced myself (but not others) that I’m not. But, I am definitely, assuredly, NOT competitive when it comes to fishing. Like many others on this post, I love to see others catch fish even if I’m not. This attitude developed with one small change in my life: having two sons.

Fishing with kids teaches you that 1) YOU sure as heck aren’t going to be doing much fishing, and 2) if you’re going to inculcate your love of fishing into children, then the tenets of patience and enjoyment of being outside on or near water has to be sufficient. Since catching is so elusive even for the most seasoned of us, we have to be careful of making sure that kids know that’s not all there is. And finally, when they catch one and seeing that anticipation and ultimate joy of landing one….well, some switch got flipped inside of me. I love seeing others catch fish.
 
I'm competitive. I think it's part of our basic instincts, like the survival instinct. Maybe it came with increasing maturity; I'm not sure, but I feel like I've been able to turn the competitive drive on and off at will, or at least modulate it as fits the situation. The competitive instinct may have come with me to fishing. I can't really remember now. All I know is that the more I fished, the more I learned that more variables beyond my skill level determined the outcome, so competition seemed rather futile. And the more I fished, the more I realized that I found satisfaction regardless of how successful the fishing was. So for years now, achieving satisfaction feels as good as winning anything ever did.
 
I'm competitive when I fish.
The competition is always between me, an upright homonid with a fairly well-developed brain, advanced reasoning skills, and tool proficiency, and some teleost with a brain the size of a pea.
I occasionally get the upper hand, but in the end, the fish always win.
 
I don't care how many more fish you catch than I do when we fish together. Maybe that's because I like to fish alone. When I fish alone I can go and come back when my little heart desires to. When you fish with another person there is usually a wait period involved. I just hate to wait on anything. But this isn't a post on waiting.

It's that 25 cent word that I can't spell with out looking at it as I try to spell it. Competition. There isn't competitive bone in my body. When I come on here. Shit there it goes again. I had something on my mind and when I turned my head it left me. No, I come on here to have fun. Like when I get out to fish. It's just getting out is the only drug I need. If I catch something, that's fine and if I want to quit for the day I can. If I don't catch anything, that's fine also. I was out in the great outdoor doing what I like. And at my age just getting out is the problem. The body is willing but the brain isn't. Or maybe it's the other wat around.

This is enough Bullshit for today. When I try to type a note this long it takes me a long time to do it. I have to correct all my mistakes before I send it. This is about the only thing that I try to do right. I don't abbreviate anything. Putting words to text is just something I strive to do right. I can't help it because I'm nuts.
 
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