Winning is Fleeting, Excellence is Permanent
This month we’re prepping for the Lumos Intramural Open, our version of the CrossFit Games Open. I’ll be diving into some thoughts around competing and how it shapes us, challenges us, and sometimes causes us to act like absolute goons 🙂
Chasing Excellence vs. Chasing Victory
Competition is intoxicating. The thrill of winning, the recognition, the proof that all your work has paid off—it’s easy to get hooked on chasing victory. But there’s a problem with that. When victory becomes the only thing that matters, the process takes a backseat. And when you’re no longer in love with the process, you’re setting yourself up for frustration, burnout, and a constant feeling that you’re never quite enough.
The best competitors aren’t chasing victory. They’re chasing excellence. And there’s a crucial difference between the two.
Now what?
Let’s say you set a goal: you want to win your division in the CrossFit Open, or take first place in a local competition. You train for months. You sacrifice sleep, time with friends, and balance in pursuit of this goal. Then competition day comes, and… you win. Victory. You’ve achieved what you set out to do.
Now what?
You wake up the next morning and realize that nothing actually changed. You still have the same strengths, the same weaknesses. You’re still the same person. The high of winning fades fast, and suddenly you need another victory to feel like you’re moving forward. This is the trap of chasing victory—it’s a hunger that never quite gets satisfied.
On the other hand, let’s say you commit to a different goal: instead of focusing on beating others, you focus on getting better. You refine your weaknesses. You learn new skills. You become more mentally resilient, more disciplined, and more in control of your emotions under pressure. Maybe you don’t win the competition. Maybe you come in second, or tenth. But you walk away better than you were before.
That improvement stays with you. It becomes part of who you are. And when you chase excellence instead of just victory, you realize that you never really “arrive”—there’s always more to learn, more to refine, more to discover. That’s the kind of fire that never burns out.
The Best are Obsessed with the Process
Look at any truly elite competitor in any field—sports, business, music, art. The ones who last, who continue to evolve and stay at the top, aren’t obsessed with winning. They’re obsessed with getting better.
Take someone like Tom Brady. He didn’t play for 20 years just to rack up Super Bowl rings. He was obsessed with refining every tiny detail of his craft—the way he threw, the way he recovered, the way he read defenses. His goal wasn’t just to win games; it was to be the best version of himself as an athlete. The wins were a byproduct.
Or look at Michael Jordan. The stories of his insane work ethic aren’t about him wanting to win more championships—they’re about him wanting to push the absolute limits of what he could do. If you watch interviews with him now, years after retiring, he doesn’t talk about the trophies. He talks about the battles. The grind. The evolution of his game. That’s what he loved.
Because here’s the thing—when you love the process, winning takes care of itself.
How to Shift Your Mindset
So how do you move from chasing victory to chasing excellence? It starts with asking yourself a few hard questions:
- If there were no competition, would I still train this hard?
- If I never won anything, would I still be proud of my progress?
- Am I competing to prove something to others, or to test myself?
If your main motivation is external—beating others, proving people wrong, seeking validation—you’re always going to be chasing a moving target. There will always be someone better, another level to reach, another reason to feel like you’re not enough.
But if your motivation is internal—if you compete because you love the challenge, because you want to see what you’re capable of, because you enjoy the process of improvement—you’ll never burn out. You’ll keep getting better, regardless of the results.
And ironically, this mindset shift actually makes you more likely to win. When you stop being fixated on the outcome and instead focus on doing the work, you perform with more freedom. You take smarter risks. You compete with less fear and more joy. And that’s the kind of competitor who stays in the game for the long haul.
The Long Game of Mastery
Winning is fun. It’s satisfying. It’s a marker of progress. But it’s not the whole game. The real game is getting better, refining your craft, and pushing your limits—not just once, but continuously.
So, if you find yourself obsessing over leaderboards, feeling like you’re only as good as your last performance, take a step back. Remind yourself why you started. Fall in love with the process again.
Because at the end of the day, the best competitors aren’t the ones who won the most. They’re the ones who never stopped chasing excellence.
