NFL DraftNFL News

6 Ways to Unleash Your Competitive Spirit

Harnessing your competitive spirit is handy for lots of reasons. You could use it to inspire your teammates and colleagues. You could leverage it to give yourself the edge over your rivals. You could rely on it to find motivation and meaning during the darkest moments.

Of course this is easier said than done, and it helps to think carefully about what you can actually do to tap into the competitive spirit which lies dormant within all of us.

To that end, here are a few tips to follow which should give you easy access to the competitiveness which can be a powerful tool in all sorts of scenarios.

Reframe challenging situations as growing experiences

As you might expect, a lot of the secret of unlocking your competitive spirit comes down to changing the way you think about the challenges you are faced with.

Rather than being intimidated and daunted by the prospect of the perils that lie in your path, it is better to instead reframe them as opportunities to grow and learn. It sounds like a simple mental step to take, but it will pay dividends by ensuring that you are actually looking forward to getting stuck into challenging situations, wherever you find them.

Embrace thorough preparation

Football is a physically intense sport, but it would be foolish to think that the competitive spirit that professional players embody is only generated and fostered on the field of play. In reality, every ounce of training and preparation they put into their game time performances is part and parcel of this phenomena.

You can apply the same rigor to how you approach the obstacles you need to overcome. Whether that means by putting in extra hours in the gym so that you are better equipped for the casual football games you play with friends, whether that means going above and beyond to perfect that work presentation, or whether that means researching slot tournament tips, strategy and rules before placing a single bet, it all makes a difference.

Through your preparations, you will find it simpler to be guided by your competitive spirit, because your mind will not be overwhelmed with having to think about every aspect of what you are trying to achieve. 

With the right planning, it should be second nature, freeing you up to take the opportunities that present themselves.

Strive to succeed for a person, a community, or a cause

Often we are at our most competitive when we are not just doing something for our own personal gain, but for the good of an external element. This could be another person, perhaps a family member or friend, or it could be for our local community, whether that is our neighborhood, our town, our city, our state or our nation.

Equally, you could fuel your competitiveness on an idealistic basis. Perhaps you have a certain set of moral and ethical principles about which you feel strongly, or which your competitive rivals threaten in some way. 

These can be just as compelling a reason to compete and win as anything else, so it’s simply a case of working out what matters most to you, and hanging your competitive spirit on it.

Focus on the prospect of victory

Obviously the basic act of visualizing a win is not going to make a spot of difference to how events actually play out in reality. Or rather, you can’t control the actions of others with your thoughts, no matter how hard you try.

However, picturing a victory is a very useful tool in terms of seeing a path towards it that you can take, and that you can influence through your own actions. This visualization technique can be a major motivator, and is used by pro sports stars as well as enthusiastic amateurs.

Study the competition

This feeds back into the idea of preparing properly, but the fact of the matter is that if you know all there is to know about your rivals, you will stand a better chance of defeating them.

Researching the tactics they use, the strengths they have and the weaknesses they try to hide will point you towards the road to success. And in turn, this means lighting the fire under your competitive spirit before the first kick of the game.

Communicate and collaborate

In the case that you need to be competitive as part of a team, the more you are a team player yourself, the better the outcome for everyone.

Competitive spirit is not just for the individual; it is one and the same thing as team spirit, and so it is also something to cherish.

Damond Talbot

NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button