Competitiveness is considered an essential personal quality by many communities, since it has a profound impact on one’s achievements and progress. Although this trend can have detrimental effects on mental well-being, it also can motivate individuals.
Competing with others can comprehensively influence people’s gains and performances. That is to say, this quality can contribute to individuals’ success, be it in career or academic studies. To exemplify, many students are motivated by a sense of competitiveness and are driven by a desire of showing better academic performance than others. This phenomenon is also described by people’s fixed mindset that they must be the best to stand out among others.
On the one hand, competitiveness can have adverse effects on one’s mental health. In other words, this quality can lead to different psychological disorders such as burnout and lower self-worth. When people make an extra effort in the pursuit of better outcomes, they may struggle to maintain a balance between work and rest. Furthermore, by comparing themselves with others, they might lose their confidence, which, in turn, lowers their potential to advance in their fields. This is best exemplified by employees who have a strong desire to get promoted, thereby getting a burnout instead of promotion and worsened self-esteem.
On the other hand, this tendency can act as a motivation for many societies. Since many people tend to make comparisons between themselves and those with greater results, they may set ambitious goals. To illustrate, nowadays, many students in Kazakhstan are motivated by the recorded scores of other students at the UNT exam. Consequently, it encouraged virtually all pupils in this country to score as high as possible, thereby contributing to far greater results and proving its more positive outcomes for many communities.
To conclude, since rivalry is believed to be a significant trait, it has a meaningful impact on society as a whole by leading to one’s success. While it can bring some challenges such as worsened mental health, its positive aspects, like motivating diverse communities and contributing to greater performance, completely outweigh its downsides.