Most people spot an opportunity and eliminate themselves before trying. They assume they won’t win and give up before the competition starts.
In this article, you’ll learn how to win any competition you enter by breaking through mental barriers and using strategies that set you apart.
Step 1: Don’t Let The Fear of Rejection Stop You From Showing Up
I see it all the time. People take themselves out of the game before it even starts.
“I’m not going to apply to Stanford… I’ll never get in, and even if I did, I could never afford it.”
“There’s no way I would ever get that job… you need 10 years of experience.”
“Enter that contest? There are probably 5,000 other people doing it.”
“I won’t even try submitting my writing to that publication… they only accept people with huge followings.”
“Apply for that grant? Please. They probably get thousands of applications from people way more qualified.”
YES! They’re absolutely right! They’ll never win because they’ve already eliminated themselves from any consideration.
Most people completely misunderstand rejection. Every single successful person you admire has been rejected hundreds, if not thousands, of times. The difference is that they understand rejection isn’t a final judgment of their abilities—it’s just data.
When I was starting out, I got rejected from job after job. But each rejection taught me something:
- How to improve my pitch: I learned to talk about myself and my work in a way that connected with people.
- What companies were actually looking for: Each company gave different feedback, showing me what they truly valued beyond just the basic requirements.
- Where I needed to build more skills: I always asked why I got rejected, and those honest answers showed me exactly where I needed to improve.
- How to stand out in a sea of applications: I found ways to make my applications and interviews memorable, naturally standing out from the crowd.
Here’s the truth—everything worthwhile in life involves competition. The promotion at work, the spot at your dream school, and even finding an amazing partner are all competitions in their own way. But here’s the secret that changes everything: You don’t have to be the best to win. Success often comes down to simply being better than those who never had the courage to show up.
Let the admissions committee reject you. Let the hiring manager decide you’re not qualified. Let the contest judges determine you’re not the winner. But never, ever put yourself out of contention because of your fear of rejection.
Step 2: Understanding the Continuum of Doers
Let me introduce you to a framework that will completely change your thoughts about competition. I call it the “Continuum of Doers.” Understanding where you fall on this spectrum—and, more importantly, where your competition falls—can be the difference between winning and losing.
Let’s break down each level, and I want you to honestly assess where you currently sit:
Non-Doers (The Dreamers)
These people love to talk about what they’re “going to” do. They have brilliant ideas for businesses they’ll never start, books they’ll never write, and goals they’ll never achieve because they’re paralyzed by fear, perfectionism, or “productive procrastination.” Instead of working on their novel, they’ll spend hours researching the perfect writing software. Rather than launching their business, they’ll endlessly refine their logo. They mistake motion for progress, staying busy with unimportant tasks while the real work that could change their lives remains untouched.
The tragic irony is that many Non-Doers have incredible potential—they’re often the most creative and insightful people in the room.
Reluctant Doers (The Deadline Warriors)
Ever notice those people who only spring into action when there’s a gun to their head? That’s your Reluctant Doer. While they eventually complete their work, they operate exclusively at the last possible moment, turning every task into a high-stress emergency.
They need external pressure because they haven’t developed their internal drive. In the workplace, they’re the ones pulling all-nighters before presentations. In school, they’re cramming the night before exams. The problem runs deeper than just poor time management—in most competitions, waiting for someone to push you means you’ve already lost to someone who pushed themselves first.
Reactive Doers (The Good Soldiers)
These people are reliable and consistent performers. They’ll do what’s asked of them and do it well, often exceeding basic expectations. The problem is, they’re always waiting for instructions, for someone else to set the direction.
In a job, they’re the solid B+ employees who execute flawlessly but never get promoted to leadership because they don’t show initiative. In a competition, they follow all the rules perfectly but miss the golden opportunities to stand out because those opportunities weren’t spelled out in the instructions. Their competence becomes their cage.
Proactive Doers (The Self-Starters)
Now, we’re getting to the winners. Proactive Doers don’t wait for opportunities—they create them through deliberate action and strategic thinking. They find creative ways to add value before anyone asks, becoming indispensable rather than just reliable. When others see problems, they see possibilities.
In a job search, they’re the candidates who arrive at interviews having already analyzed the company’s challenges and created a detailed 30-, 60-, and 90-day plan for the role. At work, they’re not just completing tasks—they’re actively improving systems and processes. Their success comes from a fundamental understanding that excellence isn’t about doing what’s asked, but doing what’s needed.
Super Doers (The Game-Changers)
At the top of the pyramid are the Super Doers. These rare individuals don’t just complete tasks—they transform them. They’re strategic, focused, and able to see opportunities others miss. When they enter a competition, they’re not thinking about winning, they’re thinking about how to change the game entirely.
Consider what happens when a prestigious company posts a job requiring an extensive application process including multiple rounds of interviews, a project submission, and maybe even a presentation.
The Non-Doers see the requirements and immediately close the tab. The Reluctant Doers save the posting but never start the application. The Reactive Doers fill out just the basic requirements, following instructions to the letter. The Proactive Doers create a standout application with extra research and thoughtful additions. The Super Doers find creative ways to get noticed before the application process starts, maybe by connecting with team members or creating relevant content showcasing their expertise.
Moving up the continuum
Most people don’t realize that you can move up this continuum because it’s not fixed. I’ve seen countless people transform from Reluctant Doers to Super Doers by systematically building the right habits and mindsets.
Moving up this ladder isn’t about working harder—it’s about fundamentally changing how you approach every task. I’ve spent years watching people transform themselves by focusing on a few key areas:
- Start your day with a power hour. Block off your first hour each day for critical work. No emails, no meetings, no distractions. This single habit has transformed more careers than almost any other strategy I’ve seen.
- Go above and beyond by delivering more than what’s asked for. When you submit a report, include key recommendations. During presentations, bring a one-page summary of action items. These small, unexpected additions make a lasting impression over time.
- Start identifying problems before others mention them and create solutions before anyone asks. Sometimes this means writing an analysis that might help your team, or improving a process that’s clearly broken. Begin with something small, but begin now.
- Look closely at the most successful people in your field and learn from them. Pay attention to how they think about problems differently. Notice the questions they ask that others don’t think to ask. Their patterns of success often leave clues that you can emulate.
- Keep notes on what you try and how it works. Write down your wins, your failures, and what you learned. This becomes your personal playbook for growth and gives you concrete examples to share when opportunities arise.
Each time you push yourself to do a little more than expected, you build momentum. These small choices compound over time, transforming not just how others see you, but how you see yourself.
An example of how people remove themselves from the competition
Let me tell you about something fascinating that happened a few years ago. A job ad was posted for two highly sought-after positions. But instead of the usual “send us your resume,” these were contests. And here was the kicker – before anyone could apply, they had to pay a $25 non-refundable fee.
The reaction was exactly what you’d expect—people lost their minds. But while hundreds of potential candidates were throwing fits in the comments and refusing to apply, they were doing the serious candidates a huge favor. Every person who complained and dropped out made the odds better for those who decided to go after it.
This is the perfect example of how people self-select out of competitions. Fear, lack of preparation, or simply unwillingness to push through small obstacles causes most people to eliminate themselves before they even start. That $25 fee and some extra paperwork cut down the competition dramatically.
When I saw reactions like these, I smiled. While others saw barriers, I saw an opportunity. When a job application requires extra effort—maybe a project, a presentation, or, yes, even a small fee—that’s not an obstacle. That’s a gift. It’s systematically removing your competition.
Here’s the mindset shift that will change everything. The next time you’re job hunting, don’t feel overwhelmed by the thousands of potential applicants. Focus on being better than the small percentage genuinely committed enough to push through all the barriers.
As Steve Jobs said, “You can only connect the dots looking backward.” Those complainers who dropped out will never know where their dots might have led them.
Step 3: Embrace Barriers as Opportunities
Most people misunderstand barriers. They see application fees and groan, they encounter additional requirements and quit, they face unpaid projects and walk away. However, successful people understand that these barriers are gifts in disguise.
Think about the classic college application process. When a school adds an extra essay requirement or a specialized project, thousands of potential applicants drop out immediately. “Too much work,” they mutter, closing their browser. But that reaction cleared the path for dedicated applicants willing to put in the effort.
This filtering process happens everywhere. And once you understand it, you’ll never look at barriers the same way again.
Let me break down a perfect example—the path to becoming a Major League Baseball player:
- 2,000,000 kids play in little league
- 455,000 make it to high school baseball
- 25,000 play in college
- 1,500 get drafted by MLB teams
Even getting drafted doesn’t guarantee success. At any given moment, only 750 players wear a Major League uniform.
The players who make it to the Big Leagues aren’t just the most talented, they’re the ones who cleared every barrier in their path. They showed up for 6 AM practices. They maintained emotional stability under pressure. They stayed out of trouble. They built strong relationships with teammates and coaches. They handled the brutal adjustment to professional baseball.
Each of these barriers filtered out more players, even highly talented ones. However, for the players who pushed through, each barrier meant fewer competitors left standing.
Consider how many barriers stand between you and your next opportunity. Each of these obstacles serves one purpose—to eliminate your competition before the real evaluation even begins. Every requirement that makes you hesitate is quietly removing thousands of others from the race.
Step 4: Develop a Winning Mindset
Most people think talent determines who wins. They’re wrong. Mindset is the ultimate differentiator between winners and quitters. I’ve watched incredibly talented people fail because they crumbled at the first sign of trouble while seemingly average competitors dominated through sheer persistence.
Here’s how to develop a winning mindset that sets you apart:
First, like I mentioned above, stop seeing challenges as barriers. Start seeing them as filters—each is an opportunity to separate yourself from people who give up. When everyone complains about a difficult application process, you should think, “Perfect. Another chance to stand out.”
When faced with complex challenges, winners take a systematic approach. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the full scope of a project, they break it down into manageable pieces. An intimidating job application becomes a series of small tasks: research the company, customize your resume, prepare portfolio examples, and draft the cover letter.
Winners also separate themselves by studying failure relentlessly. The key is brutal self-reflection. After every competition (win or lose), ask yourself:
- What specific actions contributed to this outcome? Did you start preparing too late? Maybe you impressed them with your research but stumbled on technical questions. Break down exactly what worked and what didn’t. If you got rejected after a great interview, perhaps your follow-up wasn’t strong enough, or your portfolio needed more relevant examples.
- Where did I miss opportunities to stand out? Look for moments when you played it safe instead of taking calculated risks. Did you stick to basic answers when you could have shared unique insights? Perhaps you had a relevant experience that you forgot to mention, or maybe you could have created a project specifically for this opportunity.
- Which parts of my preparation could have been stronger? Be specific here. Instead of “I should have prepared more,” identify exactly what needed work. Did you practice your presentation only twice when you needed ten run-throughs? Did you research the company but forget to study their competitors? Did you memorize answers instead of understanding core concepts?
Many people don’t realize that success is non-linear. The people who win aren’t the ones who never fail—they’re the ones who turn every setback into a lesson. Each rejection or mistake becomes data for your next attempt.
Step 5: Go Beyond Talent And Use Your Strengths
Raw talent is overrated. I’ve seen countless talented people fail while others with average abilities but exceptional self-awareness crushed it. The difference is understanding and leveraging your unique strengths.
Everyone has natural strengths. Maybe you’re the person who can break down complex ideas into simple terms. Common strengths and skills that can set you apart:
- Strategic thinking and problem-solving: You naturally see connections others miss. While most people get stuck on surface-level solutions, you dig deeper to find root causes. You excel at breaking big challenges into manageable pieces and creating action plans that actually work.
- Clear communication and storytelling: You can explain complex ideas in ways that resonate with people. Your presentations don’t just convey information—they tell compelling stories that stick. When others struggle to get their point across, you find the perfect analogy or example to make things click.
- Building relationships and reading people: You understand people’s motivations and genuinely connect with their perspectives. In meetings, you pick up on subtle dynamics that others miss. You build lasting relationships because you remember details about people and follow through consistently.
- Creative innovation: You question assumptions while others follow established paths. You spot opportunities in challenges and find fresh angles to old problems. Your ability to reimagine solutions and simplify complexity helps you transform obstacles into advantages.
Take five minutes right now and write down your core strengths. Not what you think they should be—what they are. Then, look at your next competition through this lens. How can you reshape the challenge to play to these strengths?
Let me give you an example of what this might look like. Say you’re applying for a project management role, but your greatest strength is creative problem-solving, not traditional organization. Instead of forcing yourself into a conventional PM template, you might create a presentation showing how you’d solve their current bottlenecks in unique ways. Your application becomes less about checking standard boxes and more about demonstrating your distinctive value.
Persistence is the best strength to have
There’s one strength that matters more than any other—persistence. Those sporadic bursts of intense work might feel productive, but they’re nothing compared to steady, relentless progress. Small improvements compound over time. Ten focused minutes every day beats five hours of frantic work once a month.
Your unique combination of strengths and persistent effort creates an advantage no one can copy. That’s how you win.
Why Most People Self-Eliminate Before They Even Start
Fear of failure stops most people cold. I see it constantly with competitive opportunities. People build elaborate stories about why they can’t succeed before trying.
Think about how often you’ve heard someone say, “I won’t even apply to that dream job… I don’t have enough experience.” That self-defeating mindset guarantees failure.
Here’s how most people eliminate themselves:
- Fear of failure: They convince themselves they won’t succeed before attempting. This is especially common with competitive opportunities.
- Self-rejection: Instead of letting the selection committee decide, they reject themselves with the classic “Why bother applying if I’m just going to get rejected?”
- Analysis paralysis: They spend so much time weighing pros and cons that the opportunity passes them by.
The solution is brutally simple. Take the first step. Stop telling yourself stories about why you can’t win and move forward. Change your internal script from “I’ll never win” to “Let’s see what happens.” That single shift puts you ahead of everyone who talked themselves out of trying.
How to Get Better at Overcoming Barriers
Winning more competitions boils down to mastering how you handle barriers. Here’s how to do just that:
Enhance your problem-solving skills
Build your problem-solving toolkit with proven frameworks. Different challenges require different approaches, and having multiple tools at your disposal helps you tackle problems from various angles. Here are some powerful frameworks to master:
- SWOT Analysis: Break down any situation into its core components: Strengths (what advantages do you have?), Weaknesses (where are you vulnerable?), Opportunities (what could you leverage?), and Threats (what obstacles lie ahead?). This framework excels at giving you a complete picture before making big decisions.
- Mind Mapping: Start with your central problem in the middle of a page. Branch out with related ideas, then connect those branches to spot hidden patterns. This visual approach helps you see connections that stay hidden in linear thinking. It’s particularly powerful for creative projects or when you feel stuck in conventional solutions.
- First Principles Thinking: Break complex problems down to their fundamental truths, then rebuild your solution from there. Instead of following conventional wisdom, ask, “What do we know for certain?” This approach helped Elon Musk revolutionize rocket technology by questioning basic assumptions about how much rockets should cost in the first place.
- The “5 Whys” Technique: Keep asking “why” to dig past symptoms and find root causes. Take a failed project timeline. Instead of stopping at “missed deadline,” we dig deeper: miscommunication led to unclear roles, stemming from no project charter—all because of a rushed planning phase. This reveals the true problem to fix and doesn’t have to be complex either, see how the “5 Whys” can be laid out simply in a table below.
| Question | Reason |
|---|---|
|
Why did the project fail? |
Missed deadline |
|
Why was the deadline missed? |
Team miscommunication |
|
Why was there miscommunication? |
Unclear responsibilities |
|
Why were there unclear responsibilities? |
No project charter |
|
Why was there no project charter? |
Rushed planning phase |
The key to better problem-solving goes beyond frameworks. You need to seek out diverse perspectives from people outside your field. For example, a marketer might solve your coding problem or an artist could transform your business approach. When you bring together proven frameworks with fresh perspectives, you’ll discover solutions others miss entirely.
Cultivate adaptability and flexibility
Change isn’t your enemy; it’s your advantage. While others freeze when plans derail, you’ll adapt and move forward. Here’s how to build this crucial skill:
- Cross-train your mind: Build a diverse skill set in your field, but don’t stop there. If you’re a designer, learn to code. If you’re a writer, start picking up some data analytic skills that you can show off in your work.. Every new skill becomes another tool in your arsenal. The most adaptable people draw from multiple disciplines to solve problems in unexpected ways.
- Step out of your comfort zone: Small challenges build adaptability faster than you’d think. You can start by solving problems with more difficult (but artificial constraints), one way to do this is to impose tighter deadlines on yourself so that you’re always ready for when an emergency deadline needs to be met. Join high-pressure environments: Put yourself where quick thinking matters. For example, Toastmasters is a public speaking club with meet-ups in major cities around the world. They meet on a regular basis, and members practice public speaking (complete with pre-designed obstacles) in unique ways. Each experience builds your ability to thrive in uncertainty.
- Build a strong support network: No matter what it might seem like, adaptable people rarely succeed alone. Surround yourself with others who embrace change and find mentors who’ve navigated major transitions. You can also create a circle of peers who challenge your thinking and support your growth without holding you back.
The more comfortable you get with uncertainty, the better you’ll handle competition curveballs. Your ability to adapt becomes your edge. When others see obstacles, you’ll see opportunities for creative solutions.
Harness the power of self-reflection
After every competition or challenge, take 15 minutes to review your performance. Your losses often teach more valuable lessons than your wins. Success can mask bad habits, but failure illuminates the path to improvement.
Everyone handles pressure differently. Some people rush into decisions without thinking, while others get stuck analyzing every angle until opportunities pass them by. Start noticing your own patterns. Once you understand how you naturally react, you can catch yourself before these habits hurt your chances.
Here are a few tips to improve self-reflection and the growth that comes from it:
- Keep a competition journal: After each interview, project, or challenge, write down exactly what went well or what didn’t. Note your preparation steps, successful answers, and where you stumbled. Each entry builds your self-awareness.
- Study your best (and worst) moments: Look closely at times you performed well (and times you didn’t). What did you do differently? Maybe you prepared mock presentations or got early feedback on your work. These winning strategies become your personal playbook for future challenges.
- Get outside perspective: Share your experiences with mentors and peers. They’ll spot blind spots you miss and offer insights from their own journeys. Write down their feedback to review for the next competition you enter.
- Turn insights into action: Create specific plans to address what you’ve learned based on feedback. If you spot a weakness in how you handle pressure, set up practice scenarios to help you overcome that. When you notice a successful approach, document it for future use so you can replicate your chances of success in your next competition.
Remember, competition skills strengthen through deliberate practice. Each barrier you face becomes an opportunity to build mental toughness.
Turn Doubt into Action—And Win
After years of studying winners and teaching people how to succeed, I’ve learned that winning isn’t about being the best on paper. It’s about persisting through barriers and outlasting everyone else. The most talented competitors often step back when things get tough, while “average” players who stick it out win.
The most important step isn’t developing the perfect strategy or acquiring more skills. It’s taking action—right now, today, even if you don’t feel fully prepared.
It’s one of the best things I’ve published (and 100% free), just tell me where to send it:
