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Productivity, Success

True Winners Don’t Just Aim To Win, They Appreciate And Learn From Their Competitors

Anna is the Editor-in-Chief & Content Strategist of Lifehack.

So this year’s Academy Awards Show’s over, I bet one of your most remarkable moments would be the mixing up mistake for the Best Picture. After all, nothing like this had ever happened over the past 89 years of Academy Awards Shows.

While people are hotly debating over the internet whether it’s the host or Leonardo DiCaprio for causing the mix-up of the Best Picture, I would rather stick my focus to the incredible crew and cast of both Moonlight and La La Land.

Once the La La Land team realized that the Best Picture actually went to Moonlight, La La Land’s producer Fred Berger felt proud to hand the award to their friends in Moonlight, and the team graciously handed over their statues to the people behind Moonlight. And during the thank you speech, the director of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, also said “my love to La La Land” which showed his support and respect for the movie.

True winners see competitors as friends, not enemies.

Imagine the moment you realized you weren’t the award winner right after you’d delivered your thank you speech, how would you feel? It probably feels like something super precious being taken away forcefully with no mercy showed. You probably would feel so disappointed that you wouldn’t feel like your competitors could be your friends.

Everyone works hard to play their best in any competitions. Both movies La La Land and Moonlight have an amazing team of crew and cast, they all did their very best to wow the audience and both movies are trying to deliver some really meaningful messages that would inspire people’s lives. The crew behind the two movies demonstrated to everyone how “competitors” are like friends who should respect and support each other’s effort.

True winners understand that they’re not “best of the world”, there’re always something they can learn from others. Instead of seeing the competitors as enemies, they’re friends who are passionate about the same thing (which is amazing), and they can learn from each other.

When passionate people come together, they can grow and win together.

Well, most of us may not be taking part in competitions very often, or have the opportunity to be nominated for some very huge awards; but there must be something that you really love doing and want to do it better than others.

Say for me, I love writing. Though winning any writing awards is not my aspiration, I’d love to write better and have more readers who’d be inspired by what I write. If I see all other writers as my enemies, I’d just focus on winning over them instead of learning and improving myself. I might miss out all the amazing works all those great writers write and would never learn some of the best ideas or writing skills others demonstrate.

But if I look at other writers from another perspective, I can see a lot of talented writers who are as passionate as me. I see friends, and I see mentors. When I learn to appreciate others, I see what’s lack in me and what I can do to get better.

Try to surround yourself with people who are passionate about the same thing like you do. Discuss your ideas with them, learn from them. Instead of just trying to show off how good you’re doing something, try to be humble and gather more perspectives from them. That’s how you can learn and grow, and become a true winner.