Power tool: Creativity versus Competitive
By ‘Coach Erwin’ de Grave – ã October 2007
This is a real powerful and important power tool. To better explain the power of creativity, allow me to elaborate in more depth Competitive and Competition. What I want to point out that this power tool can be used by the coach itself to stay focussed and at the same time he/she can use it during coaching sessions with their clients to support the client to (re-)focus onto the important things. The most genius of this power tool is that, when you combine both, i.e. creativity and competitiveness, in the correct order, you have even an explosive top-power tool. But before given you the secret combination, let us explore both ingredients individually.
Competition
Competitive is derived from the verb ‘to compete’. To compete is defined in the online Cambridge Dictionary as “
1to try to be more successful than someone or something else; 2to take part in a race or competition”[1], or in the Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary as “To contend emulously; to seek or strive for the same thing, position, or reward for which another is striving; to contend in rivalry, as for a prize or in business; as, tradesmen compete with one another.”
[2].
Looking at those definitions, both say that competition is about winning or being better than someone else for a post, a prize, or pride. The interesting part about competitiveness is that you will undertake all the necessary actions in relation to the other side (being an individual or a group). This means that you will determine your actions based upon the other, the environment and the situation, so that you can win. That is what the definitions about ‘to compete’ in general say.
Let us now have a more in depth look and analyse what competition means in your life and how it can affect your coaching and the success of all people.
When you or your client are in a state of ‘being in a pure competitive mood’ (as I call it), this means that you are living and acting outside of yourself. What do I mean with that? I mean with that, in general, as there always exceptions, that you or the client are taking actions and decisions based upon what the competitor is doing or the environment you are in, and that you or your client are taken the shots not tapping in your own knowledge and wisdom. When you would take actions tapping first of all from within you, you would be much more powerful and you would be in a creative mood. I will explain more in detail this creative mood later on.
What are the symptoms of someone who is in a pure competitive mood:
o You are all the time worried about losing out to your competitor(s);
o You feel that your energy level is really low;
o You feel tired as you sleep bad at night (due to the worries);
o You are afraid for the new kids around the block;
o You feel enormously stressed and worn down;
o Your confidence level is low as you think that you are not as good as your competitor;
o … (Question to the reader: What are your experiences and symptoms?)
[3]
If you can identify yourself with one or more of the above points, do not worry at all, as you have the solution here at your fingertips. You can learn and apply to transform all the above symptoms in powerful characteristics. Ready to move yourself and your client to another level?
Be creative
An important point that I personally learned in life, and which I want to share with you here, is that you are 100 times stronger, more powerful, more confident, actually more of all the good things when you live and take actions from within you. I mean that you are realising much more things and feel more complete in your life if you do the things from inside to the outside, from your interior towards your exterior. Otherwise explained, you prefer to determine for yourself what is around you and happening in your life instead of your environment determining your life. This last part of the last sentence happens, for example, when you are in a pure competitive mood.
Now, you are probably asking yourself what could be a strong base that you could use to live from the inside out, and one of those strong bases is ‘Being Creative’. Being creative means that you are developing and taking actions and decisions based upon what is important to you and what you want to achieve in your life. Being creative means that you look at what you want in your life and find creative solutions within you to realise those dreams and goals. If you want to compare it with competition, than competition is determining your life from outside in, where being creative is determining your life from inside out. This is also much more powerful, as it is something that comes from you and of which you are proud of.
Ok, you maybe already know this, but you are looking for ways that you can apply that in your life successfully, and transform the above symptoms into powerful characteristics. Well then, let us have a look at a possible procedure/process/way that you could use:
ü A good way to start off is by sitting down for a few seconds and come back to yourself;
ü Have clear defined goals and objectives (if you do not have them clearly defined, do this maybe with the help of a coach);
ü Being creative means that you solve and realise things in your life without looking at others, just finding the best solution for you and translating those into actions;
ü An important question that you can ask is: ‘Am I doing this for me or when I am taking action, do I want to show off to others that I have made it?’ (This is a really important point and method to check if you are really doing something for you or that you are doing something just only to please someone else. If you are in a creative mood, then all the actions and decisions you take are pleasing you, and when you please someone else at the same time as pleasing yourself, pleasing the other person will be much more of fun and gratifying.);
ü When you are in the creative mood, whatever your decision will be, it will be based upon respect towards yourself and others, and it will be in a mindset of no harming no one;
Basically, when you are creative, these would be possible sensations:
v being content with yourself;
v feel happy;
v have a high level of self-confidence;
v the things that you want to realise start to be offered to you (the Law of Attraction at work);
v you feel strong and satisfied;
v you have fun doing things;
The Secret Combination
Yes, I know, you have been reading all the above to get finally to this point what really interest you (and me too…), and that is that secret explosive combination that is so powerful and is used by successful people. Here is the secret combination: be competitive using your creativity. Is it just that? Yes, that is the formula. Allow me to explain.
First of all, we live in a competitive world and one of the main activities that ‘lives’ on competition is sport. And I would like to take this example to explain you the formula. All the top sport performers and champions combine creativity with competitiveness. The process in which they do it is really important: translate your creativity into positive competition to realise your goal. Taking the example of sport, a champion realises that ultimate result tapping into his/her own creativity and focus, and transforms this in the moment of truth into success. Actually, they are not champions because they are competing with the other participants, they are realising their results by ‘competing’ or challenging their own limits/comfort zones/expectations. This is actually their strength. If you ask a sportsman or –woman the times that they have competed directly with others, they will tell you that they never won. They win and are successful because there are creatively using competition to realise their goals and objectives, no matter who the other participants are.
So, to summarise this wonderful power tool, I would like to do this in the following way:
- as coach, be creative realising your success, and be creative supporting and guiding your client. Your are not in competition with another coach or situation. If you feel in competition with a situation, just relax and ask yourself the reason for this competitiveness. Look at it from your creative eyes, and yes, everyone has creativity within him/herself.
- As coach coaching a client, take your client to his/her creative mood, and you can do this by empowering, acknowledging, motivating, etc. your client. Use the techniques that you have learned and acquired during your education.
