On the competitive mindset

Most of my friends think that I am a peaceful guy, never gets angry, pretty calm guy overall. My family knows that it's the complete opposite, I am not peaceful, almost never calm, anxious, and an exceptionally sore loser when it comes to competitions. I am extremely bad at losing gracefully; I can't take it - to give you a recent example, my final class at Georgia Tech was a competition Senior Design Class. My team placed third; I was solidly depressed for a week and deleted all emails from my professor regarding the class from my inbox permanently.

For a very long time, well up to the end of high school, I was driven by the desire to win - whether it be valedictorian, better college, grades, math competition, etc. Life was a competition, and the only way I can move forward is to stay on top all the time and put in as much effort as needed. This intense desire to stay on top did produce some results - I was able to place 2nd overall in an international math competition (historically, I have never done well in these academic competitions). However, the vast majority of this self-imposed pressure lead to very poor mental health - at the very end, I started to see myself as a failure.

Coming off a turbulent summer before the start of my undergrad career at Georgia Tech, I vowed to myself that I don't need to compete anymore. I was only there to get the bare minimum for an A and get out of the class. My main focus would be research and working hard on my individual project. It worked well for the majority of the time there; I would barely show up to class, study for the tests, and pass the class with barely As. Although I developed some unhealthy habits, it was really safe for my fragile ego to develop self-confidence, and start to heal from the intense pressure I put myself under in high school.

Like beforehand when I was competing too much - too much relaxing and foregoing effort made it all but come crashing down on my final year - I had one of the worst semesters wherein 8 classes, I made 7 Bs, and a lonely A. My ego had become too big, and that reality check showed me that moving forward I need to put in effort. But, in my mind, effort was correlated to competition, if I start putting in effort, I start competing, and that was detrimental from past experience.

So I was faced with a personal dilemna, how do I put in effort without competing all the time?

I don't have an answer to it, but I think I have some insights. A couple of my favorite athletes and teams are Lewis Hamilton, F1 Driver, and Lebron James, NBA player, and G2 Esports, a League of Legends Esports team.

Why I like them is a bit more complicated - Lewis because he is dominating in a field of historically white males; Lebron because of his ability to see and shape the game; G2 Esports because they are changing the way the game is played. Furthermore, what is even more interesting is that these athletes and players are old relative to their fields - Lewis is 35 (racing amongst 25 year olds) , Lebron is 36 (playing against 26 year olds), G2 Esports members average age is 23 (playing against 19 year olds). Yet, they are dominating over and over and over again, Lewis and Lebron's desire to win is legendary, they are forever hungry chasing that next title, next race. G2 Esports having an 80% League win rate, where it is unheard of for top teams to even repeat a season's worth of dominance.

What is perhaps unique about these athletes is that they are not only known for their clutch moments (Lewis won his first WDC on the last curve of the last lap of the last race), (Lebron reversing a 3-1 deficit against the most dominant regular-season team ever produced (73-9 Golden State Warriors), (G2 Esports defeating Asian powerhouse League of Legends teams), but perhaps their ability to win early and dominate late. Lewis and Lebron both dominate early in their respective sports - Lewis wins so many points in the early races that by the end of the season, most of the drivers are trailing 2 entire race wins behind him. Lebron's early game prowess in setting up shots, and plays catapults his respective teams lead from the recent Lakers title run, to Cavaliers, and Heat. G2 Esports is known for its impeccable early and mid game macro play; they close out games on an average of 20-24 minutes, about 10 minutes faster than other teams.

If I take inspiration from these people, it turns out that the age-old adage - "First impression is the last impression" truly matters. Winning early is key to being able to clutch the late portions. In other words, they compete extremely ferociously at two points - at the beginning which sets them up an immense advantage, which allows them to bring it home at the final clutch moments. Other times, they are rather average compared to the rest of the field.

I think I like this mode of operation better than the previous types I tried - competing all the time leads to burnout, and waiting too late to start competing leads to failure (which is what happened with my senior design class, I started putting in the effort way too late for me to make a solid headway against the first placed team.)

I think this also applies to research - the initial burst of activity is critically important to get the ball rolling, and have that initial momentum power through the awful slog phase, and use it to finish strong on a project.

From now on, I will try to put in more effort and get in the competitive mindset in the front - from my classes to research and see how that takes me when I near the end; hopefully, this time I will be much better off to clinch my wins!