About six years ago, the Women's Sports Foundation put together a task force to take a close look at girls' sports programs in New York City. As the founder and executive director of Row New York (a rowing and academic program for girls) I was one of five people on the task force. On our first conference call the group was asked a series of questions. One still stands out in my mind.
"How important is it that competition be a part of your program for girls?"
I was surprised by my peers' responses as, one by one, they talked about everything but competition. Instead they shared their programs' strategies for creating safe space for girls, for giving them a chance to exercise and get fit, and learn to work together to solve conflict and support one another. A couple of program leaders even said they were strongly opposed to encouraging competition among girls as this focus detracted from efforts to build camaraderie and self-confidence.
But why do these clear positives (camaraderie and self-confidence) and competition have to be mutually exclusive? At Row New York, as I explained then and still explain today, we want our girls to have a place in which they feel strong and safe, where they work together as teammates, but where they are also asked to be competitive.
How does learning to be competitive as a young woman help her succeed in college and beyond? It's only in being competitive that we ask ourselves to lean in, to go beyond where we are comfortable, to make an effort and see what results.
Let's look specifically at Row New York for a moment. If a girl wants a seat in the fastest boat, she must work hard for that seat and even compete against her friends for it. The experience teaches her the direct connection between hard work and results as well as the important distinction between what's personal and what's business. No matter what, the other girls on the team are her friends (the personal piece), but her efforts to make the boat are all business.
We must be careful not to discourage girls from competing with one another. Instead, we should show them that it's empowering to be a part of a team that embraces teamwork and camaraderie, which encourages them to feel good about their efforts, but also challenges them to take chances, to risk failure, and not be afraid to toss their hats in the ring.
Right now it's an oar, but in a few years it will be college, and after that, their first jobs. At Row New York we want our girls to become women who are comfortable competing for the highest grade in the class, a political campaign, or a big promotion.
Sport is a great safe place for competition, but that can be tough too, but nothing like the real world consequences.
I think it is more important the people are comfortable with who they are, have self confidence, be compassionate caring for others, more so then be competitive. Desire and working to succeed in life should be the goal, there is no escaping competitive in the real world and competition also denotes winners and losers, we need as few losers in as possible in the real world. Look at the mess this country is in now.
In a competitive world in which our behavior is microanalyzed and micromanaged by parents, teachers, friends, peers, elders, boyfriends and girlfriends, bosses, subordinates, in which every outburst of the spirit is a chance to be tamped down or cast aside for the gamble of having reached excitedly for the pure joy of winning, there are only two places you can reliably go to be accepted for what you do and who you are: sports and your dog.
Sports provides a safe haven for competition, and competition is a healthy thing. Everyone wants to stand on the winner's podium once in a while, and even trying is fun and makes the body's strife and aches feel like fully participating in life and soaring. We don't need to protect our kids from competing; we need to find ways for them to do it in safety and a spirit of fun.
I would rather a daughter's aggression and competitiveness come out on the field, directed toward winning and being the best she can be, than anywhere else. People will be people. Let them be. Let kids struggle with the emotions of competition so they can master them and become stronger souls for it. Just make it safe.
It's much less stressful to be ok. Good enough, is good enough, sometimes.
Because you're the "Executive Director of Row New York" I can only assume you wrote this propaganda piece to get more girls to enroll in your program, so you can make more money.
You know what's better than a competitive program? A group project, that benefits the community in some way. Gardening. A poetry circle. A barn raising. Choreographing a dance routine with all your friends.
I think the time has come when we stop letting Corporate America dictate how we raise out children. Competition is the opposite of enlightenment...the time has come for cooperation with our friends and neighbors, to spend our efforts for the common good and general wellfare of all.
Choosing to raise children with emphasis placed on cooperation and not competition is admiral and worthy. But when it comes to existing as an adult, they may feel you have done them a disservice if you completely ignore the competitive realities of existing in the world. Even in the "change the world through cooperation" world, there is competition - i.e., who's definition of "general welfare" do we rally around? who defines what needs to be done? who should do what? who should delegate? In short, there's competition involved in group decisions as well as individual ambition. Preparing children for how to compete with all their effort while not becoming ugly about it is something that will serve them well in life regardless of their ambitions.
When me and my spouse get too cooperative something like this happens.
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I'm hungry.
I am also Hungry.
We got any food?
No.
Where do you want to go?
Anywhere is good, how about you?
Oh no preference, just something to eat, what would you like to eat?
I'm really fine with whatever, is there anything you want?
You know me, I bike so much its all just calories. Wherever you want to go is fine.
Well I had a burger for lunch so really anyplace not a burger joint will work.
Bah, I'm a vegetarian and you know it, that's not an answer.
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In conclusion, Thank you inventors of Yelp for breaking us out of the utter do-nothing experience of to much cooperation. Which is just as unhealthy for you as to much competition.
The trick is everything in its proper time, place, and proportion.
1. Their sports are extremely boring. They lack big play abilities and the rules protect the athletes WAY too much, making exciting play even harder to come across.
Did anyone even know the WNBA playoffs are going on right now?
My daughter's not a team sport kind of kid, but she participates in other competitive activities like her high school robotics team and musical theater, both of which are competitive: the former in matches against other schools, the latter for parts in performances.
All that said, the sports-to-business analogy isn't a perfect one: sports tend to be pure meritocracies--you work hard, you get rewarded. In business, politics and business climate muddies the water.
I won my first game in my early teens.
He beat me almost every night for over a decade. Never letting me win.
Which means that when I finally did win it was a Big Deal.
I learned a lot of lessons from this - also from a brief membership in a chess club where I could kick total butt but Dad noticed that after I started playing there my game at home started slipping.
1 - There is no shame in losing. The point of competition is self improvement. As long as you are becoming better you are getting something out of the game.
2 - There is no pride in winning unless you beat a formidable foe. If someone who is much better than you competes with you *they are doing you a favor* by allowing you to learn from them. They get nothing from the competition and in fact may lose their edge to some extent if they compete to much with people they can easily beat.
2b - If you start winning all the time seek more challenging opponents. Winning doesn't teach you anything and is of limited value.
3 - How to lose gracefully.
4 - How to win gracefully.
5 - Refusing to try when you know you won't win is childish behavior to be ashamed of. If you don't do your
I honestly don't. I've seen what hardcord competition does to people, and when you're in a real fight, in chess, it isn't just about winning...it becomes about destroying your opponent's personality. If you're a serious chess player, and someone has just destroyed your personality...well you know, how many dead chess players do you need to know before you figure out that that lifestyle isn't healthy?
The problem is that bad sportsmanship is innate. Little children are terrible competitors. They taunt, boast, and brag. They focus on winning rather than learning. Good sportsmanship is learned.
So if we don't teach kids how to compete with goods sportsmanship, they won't know how.
How to win gracefully.
How to lose gracefully.
Due to issues in childrearing practices girls need to learn the first more urgently and boys the latter more urgently.
This is because young girls are taught to feel *guilty* when they perform well and encouraged to lose on purpose so that someone else can "enjoy" winning. In fact don't just drop to second, then you'll make the folks still behind you feel bad. Wouldn't want that.
Meanwhile young boys are pressured so heavily to win that they forget that victory un-earned is meaningless. Winning because someone let you, or through cheating, or through competing beneath your weight class, is hollow.
Both these things are unhealthy.
Your ultimate opponent is you.
Being a sore loser is not acceptable. Being a jerk winner is not acceptable. There is no shame in either winning or losing so long as you did your best and the contest was between parties of similar experience.
I never experienced that in my upbringing. I guess it depends on geography, and the era. I don't think that has been true since the 1970s...at least not in California. Where and when were you raised?
I don't know. I think in high school, we see way too much of the competition, and all the social BS that accompanies that, those who are successful vs. those who don't make the grade.
Go to a high school reunion. Take a look at the "successful" competitors from earlier days. One of my classmates went on to set records in football in college, then played a few years in the NFL. He died several months ago and weighed something near 400 pounds.
I am just not sure "competition" in the sports arena transfers to real life in positive, constructive ways.
Maybe it would just be better to teach boys AND girls to play hard. But to play. I would think the mental and character benefits would be the same, if not even greater.
That kind of ethos, that kind of rhetoric, underlies, animates, informs and motivates our Marines today; Marines who are laboring in service of evil masters and evil foreign policies. Seeking victory without understanding consequences.
I've been competitive my entire life. Always trying to beat the only opponent that matters.
Me.
I'm nowhere near flexible enough to put my foot on my head.
How do you not know that you win every time you exceed your personal best, regardless of where you placed in the standings? Have you never actually been part of a competitive sport?
unique approach to life really works for you, and where you don't need to 'compete'.
I have been a vendor at our Farmers Market for many years. It's a fascinating study
in social systems : the vendors are 'competing' with each other, yet at the same time
they all have to cooperate to create the system within which they can 'compete'.
Because what actually happens is, the committed vendors each find a niche which
best suits their product, and everything sorts itself out. I am a very part-time, one
person operation, and sometimes I find myself selling bedding plants next to the
'big' greenhouse growers. But it's all good, because I offer specialty plants which
they don't bother with. And they offer a wide variety which I can't manage in my
limited space/time. So everybody's happy, and the customer gets the best of both
worlds. This is just an example, but it shows how there's more to success than
learning to be a good 'competitor'.
Seems to me like you have a phobia about competition so even when you are doing it you won't admit to yourself that that is what you are doing. Which is exactly what the blogger was talking about. Nice girls don't compete. So you have to pretend you aren't.
All games involve cooperative and competitive elements. We cooperate, for example, when we agree on the rules of the game. Without rules there is no game. We then compete within the game-space we have defined. Anyone who sneaks outside the rules is cheating.
She will be going to college next year heading for engineering degrees. She will have just turned 15.
Why does she need to play the "compete" game?
As I noted, I don't and won't play the compete game. And I have done quite well. When it became clear that my previous employer had no room for my way of doing things, I quit and joined a consultancy. My previous employer now pays more than 2X more for my time than before.
They are increasingly having to outsource certain technical talent, as they can't find and keep that talent within their ranks. Their problem, not mine. And their "compete and stackrank" mentality is a big problem. I expect my consultancy to pick up another one or two of their experts in the near future.