The challenge of being competitive

I am a competitive person. Give me a challenge and I will do my darnedest to complete that task to the very best of my ability and even try to outdo your efforts at the same task along the way. I will then strive at that task, gaining kudos and respect for my ‘knowledge and hard work’ and I will succeed pretty well.

But one day, out of the blue, I will wake up and find that the challenge is no longer do-able. Either I have accomplished all I set out to do in the short term, or, more likely, something has put me off the challenge in some way. That ’something’ could be a slight hiccup along the way, some criticism of my methods, boredom, or, most likely, complete burnout.

Like many competitive people, I live on a constant roller coaster. New things to do (especially if there are rewards along the way - praise is as good as any here) give me a high. I will be on ‘all systems go’, not sleeping much, eating snacks when I can be bothered, and completely involved with my ‘project’. This inevitably leads to exhaustion and, often, to depression.

At these times, I wallow in self analysis for a while, read, watch TV, and browse the net. I am not completely ‘out of it’ at times like these. If I find a subject which fires me up for a while (a discussion on the web for instance), I will take part and the old sense of purpose will come back. But this is just ‘browsing mode’. There is nothing concrete in what I am doing; just getting my strength back and waiting for a new challenge.

‘New Age’ Friends say it is because I am an astrological fire sign - full on burning flame one moment and burnt to a cinder the next. A shrink I once consulted in a particularly low period told me I was bipolar and offered me drugs “to help get you stable again”. I refused his help: (a) because I hate taking drugs prescribed by someone paid by pharmaceutical companies and (b) because I am not bipolar - not in the dreadful sense that many suffer from this illness - and taking onboard a ‘bipolar’ label would be, I think, a complete disregard of the suffering people who have this horrible illness have to go through.

As an aside here, it riles me when I hear people say “oh, I can’t eat that, I’m allergic to it,” when most of the time they have ‘discovered’ that wheat, tomatoes, fizzy drinks, whatever, makes them a little bloated, or perhaps have the runs for a day or so. That is intolerance people, not allergy. If you were allergic to those tomatoes, you would be in hospital right now, being pumped with anti-hystamine or some other life saving drug. Tell someone allergic to nuts or penicillin that you are ‘allergic to wheat because it makes your stomach bloated’ and see how they react. Don’t take on labels to be ’special’ or ‘different’. It’s not polite to those who have the illnesses and have to live with them.

(And yes, I know that some intolerances are bad - I have a close relative who is coeliac and has suffered badly because of this, but eating gluten will not threaten his life outright. It would in the long term if he carried on eating gluten and suffered anaemia as a consequence [or even lymphoma], but, in the short term, eating gluten will only give him the shits. If he were allergic to nuts on the other hand and ate one by accident, that would be a whole different story).

But back to where I was (I do tend to ramble a little…). So, I am a person who likes a challenge, works at that challenge until burnout, then abandons that challenge for pastures new, after a short break to get my breath and my head together.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I am in the process of setting up a business which could be lucrative. I have partners who, like me, are determined to make that business a success. The last thing I want is burnout in the middle of this operation and that’s what scares me. I don’t want to leave my partners struggling to take on my tasks as well as their own while I ‘chill out’ and look for new challenges.

How do I work this so that I do not go overboard on working at the project until it does me in mentally and physically? At the moment, I am taking time out to write online to put these things down ‘in writing’ and clear them out of my head, as it were.

Will this work? I haven’t the faintest idea. But I do feel better for having a (rather long) say on this (and other pet dislikes of mine along the way). And that’s got to be worth something. Hasn’t it?

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