Positive Rivalry
An interesting post about that relates well to the motivation stuff I've been writing about.
Sport At Its Best - Teamwork and Positive Rivalry
My favourite quote from Cal Botterill:
Most of all, people with perspective have enough vision, gratitude and security to be open to positive rivalries and other people’s needs. Positive rivalries are reflected in the sentiment “I hope you are great, because that brings out the best in me, and that’s better for all of us”. Top competitors seem to embrace positive rivalries and share this attitude. It is clearly a much higher level of functioning than negative rivalries and the “eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth” mentality that often creeps into highly competitive activity when people lose perspective.
Positive rivalries bring out the best in us and promote a win-win possibility. They promote an approach-success versus avoid-failure outlook, which is much healthier and facilitates, much higher levels of performance and functioning. Negative images, fears and tension are reduced and enhanced focus, connection and flow become possible.
Can't say enough about how much I love the “I hope you are great, because that brings out the best in me, and that’s better for all of us” attitude. As extrinisically motivated as I can be, I always want to be the best because of what I did, not someone else's failure. And someone else improving raises the bar of my expectations which is never bad.
Recent Tweets
- If this isn't a picture of Canadian unity, I don't know what is...http://is.gd/9YllT [#]
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- Last night's weak 5k time trial performance is still eating at me. Need to get past it and move on somehow. [#]
Calendar
Leading Edge
- LETC this week March 8, 2010Nice work LETC! The 5000 m run times from last week were some of the best we’ve seen! Your hard work is paying off! Results will be posted soon if they are not up already. And what can we say about the combined functional movement and swim session Sunday- definitely saw a few green faces [...] […]
Martina Wan
- S4 Week 22 – the other stuff. March 10, 2010So, here’s the thing I thought this was going to be simple. Train hard and race fast, that’s all I need to know right? I wish that was it, but sometimes it feels like that is the easiest part especially training for triathlons, its 3 sports to take care of! When I am not training or [...] […]
Engineered Athletes
- Rough Day At Work? You Won’t Feel Like Exercising September 25, 2009The experience of wise coaches and behaviour of World Class athletes supports the importance of controlling your environment to ensure peak performance. Around major games and important events, the need to minimize distractions is often a priority. So what are the implications of this in daily sport or an active healthy lifestyle? It can be as [...] […]
Tri Thinking Pink
- Seven photos for seven days March 8, 2010Yeah. I'm a slacker. Here are the past week's photos. A compilation of Spring has SprungMarch 1: around the corner from us March 2: Across the alleyMarch 3: The purple flowers I see from my kitchenMarch 4: Cherry blossoms or are those beechwoods?March 5: Date night - on a patio in Kits with wine and good foodMarch 6: More pretty pink things. I love […]
Alive With Sport
- Seven for Seven February 8, 2010I’m 7/7 in the Feb bike challenge! It’s Monday and I have to admit, my legs are tired. Riding 1hr on your bike isn’t actually that much, but I’m feeling it. With such a busy weekend**, scheduling workouts was a challenge (Sunday included a 6am trainer ride and a 9pm speed endurance [...] […]
Tri’n Fool
- The week in review March 8, 2010"Week in review" sounds much better than "I'm totally behind on posting."I blame drugs and alcohol!Robaxicet on Wednesday, and no photo that day. I put my back out changing my bike brakes the previous Sunday and that threw me off from workouts and life in general for the week. The back is mostly better but I'm still babying it a […]
December 20th, 2009 - 20:39
Thats why I like training with you and the guys, you all bring the best out of me… I really hope we all do great and become a ¨powerhouse¨ with great performances wherever we go and race!
Ps: I have been eating lots of chocolates on the last 2 hours =P
December 21st, 2009 - 12:15
Ditto. I can’t wait til the race season and see the team dominate. But easy on those chocolates because we need you leading the way.