Competition
What does competition mean to you? what does it mean to you as a business owner? And, what does it mean to you as an individual?
It means something different to each of us. However, there is one thing that’s the same. It is (or can be) the cause of a great deal of worry and anxiety. When you enter the marketplace as a business owner and you’re providing a service or product. There will be people out there that provide a similar service or product.
The marketplace that you enter will likely be crowded, or at least it will feel like it is.
In a crowded marketplace, competition is normal and healthy
Competition is a healthy thing. As an individual it can, with the right mindset, help you push towards bigger and better things. It can help you develop and grow, it can give you the fuel that you need to carry on. And competition can help you improve who you are, what you do, and how you do it.
Competition can also be quite dangerous, especially when you have got your business owner hat on. The difference tends to be a mindset issue.
When you view competition as something to be analysed, as something to be studied, to be understood, as something to provide you with extra knowledge, then competition is wonderful. But when that turns into self-flagellation and dismissal of your own abilities and the cause of worry and anxiety, then the competition becomes dangerous and limiting.
It is never one or the other
When you look at competition with the mindset of one or the other. If they’ve got success then I can’t, or vice versa. Then, competition becomes dangerous and stifling.
There is success around in abundance. It can be achieved by anyone. It takes work, for sure. But another person’s success does not hinder your own. Another person’s success does not determine your failure.
There are over 7 billion people on planet Earth. One person cannot serve them all. Success exists in abundance. You’ve just got to claim it. Now I’m not talking some ridiculous affirmation nonsense when I say that. Success takes work. It takes commitment, dedication, it takes hardship and suffering, and a whole bunch of other stuff that the average person just isn’t prepared to do.
There is enough success to go around, you can have it and so can your competitors
However, just because somebody else is successful in the thing that you want to achieve something in doesn’t mean that it’s not possible for you. In fact, quite the opposite, that person has created a blueprint. They have created a how-to guide of them showing you things to avoid, and they’ve shown you things to embrace.
Success is out there and is ripe for the taking, for those willing to put the effort in. Having competition in the marketplace can be a wonderful thing. I understand that it can be quite intimidating for you as an individual, to think that you could be put out of business by so and so having achieved enormous levels of success. But, there are levels and stages to success. And, as previously mentioned, there are more than enough customers to go around.
So if you want to achieve something big and magical, then go and do that thing
You can look to people, your so-called competition, and figure out what’s working for them so you can deploy that in your own world. And you can also look at them to figure out what’s not working. What are they wasting time on? What are they wasting money and energy on? When you spot those things, you can avoid them and achieve your success quicker.
The more people there are that are successful at what you do, the better. This is because that means you have more data to work with. You have a greater list of things that you know will work and that will help you achieve what you want to achieve.
But, only if you have the mindset for it.
The magic is in the mindset
If you look at those people. And the first thing that comes to your mind is, I can’t do it because of them. Then you won’t do it. But if you look at those people. And the first thing that comes to your mind is, “I can do it because they’ve done it. They’ve proven it can be done,” then you are much more likely to achieve that success that you’re after. There are very few cases where another person’s success comes at a detriment to someone else’s.
And in those instances, It’s only ever been because of the person’s mindset, because they’ve looked at that competition with a negative mindset they haven’t looked at that competition to learn from them.
They’ve looked to that competition for excuses, for reasons to not progress, for reasons not to try, for reasons not to put the effort in, and not to put the work in. And that is not okay. That won’t get you anywhere.
Anything to do with mindset requires an element of self-awareness, something that I have previously written about and can be found here https://mybizacademy.co.uk/be-more-self-aware-its-not-hard
Hardship matters, but not that kind
That will just cause undue suffering. Hardship is important in life. Experiencing hardship will help drive you forward. But that kind of hardship, that self-imposed, almost self-important hardship will not achieve anything. That will only ever cause you to suffer. So drop that shit, immediately.
No one is hardwired one way or the other, it is a choice. It is a choice you make, you choose to look at the people around you and you choose how you react to what you see. If you see people succeeding at what you do and you choose to perceive that as inspiration, motivation, or as a lesson in what you should be doing and what you could be trying rather than choosing to look at it in a negative light. Then you will achieve what you want to achieve. Or at the very least you have a good chance at doing so.
There will always be competition
There will always be other people doing what you want to do, there will always be other people achieving the very things that you want to achieve. Always. But you have a choice. You have a choice between letting it crush you or letting it uplift you. A sensible person, an intelligent person, would choose to let that uplifting them. A sensible and intelligent person would choose to take a lesson from it. A sensible and intelligent person would choose the positive over the negative.
If you are somebody that looks at your competition, at the people in your space, and the things that come to your mind are negative, ask yourself, are you an idiot? If you answer that question with, “no, I’m not an idiot,” then why are you being stupid? Because that’s what you’re doing right now, you’re being stupid. So why are you doing that? It is a choice. So choose to be better. Choose to react better, choose to learn from what goes on around you, choose to grow, and choose to succeed.
There is always help available to you, you just have to reach out for it
Understanding the competition is something that can end up being quite overwhelming. Overwhelm – or more specifically overcoming overwhelm – is one of my specialities. If you would like to have a chat about it then head over to my company website and send me a message, we can talk it out and get you on the right path in no time at all https://mikethebizguy.co.uk/Contact