I've always felt ashamed about my competitive streak. Now I'm learning to see it as a strength

I recently did a career-oriented personality test, hoping to unearth profound insights about myself for my professional growth.

The Gallup CliftonStrengths test is a widely recognised personality and performance assessment that professes to identify natural patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. So I hoped it would reveal that I was deeply strategic, effortlessly adaptable or secretly a visionary genius. 

Unfortunately, personality tests – when answered honestly – reveal who you are, not who you want to be.

The test told me I was competitive. Super competitive. 

Out of 34 possibilities, “competition” wasn’t just one of my higher-ranked themes. It was Number 1. 

CliftonStrengths states that people who are “exceptionally talented” in the Competition theme “need other people” because they measure their progress against the performance of others. (Yikes.)

“No matter how hard you try, no matter how worthy your intentions, if you reach your goal but do not outperform your peers, the achievement feels hollow,” the description states. (Double yikes.)

“You need to compare. If you can compare, you can compete, and if you can compete, you can win. And when you win, there is no feeling quite like it.” 

I'll be real. It was an accurate description of my competitive nature. But labelling it a “strength”? That seemed like a stretch. 

I’d spent decades trying to downplay my competitiveness at school and work, often adjusting my standards – as much as I could without hating myself – to keep the peace in group projects. We didn’t need to be the best, as long as we did our best, learnt something new and had fun along the way. 

But who was I kidding? A single, albeit reputable, personality test laid bare how evident my competitiveness had always been, the shame I still carried with it – and that perhaps, this contentious trait of mine wasn't a weakness like I believed.

WHEN COMPETITIVENESS MEANS KIASU

Like many schooled in Singapore, I’d been conditioned to see competitiveness as “kiasu”. The local colloquialism loosely translates to the fear of losing out, and is often used pejoratively to describe hallmark survival tactics in an education system likened to a pressure cooker.

Think parents stockpiling past-year exam papers from so-called elite schools, so their children can outperform their peers. Or the tuition industry's fear-based advertising tactics that prey on both anxious parents and students.

Back in school, more kiasu classmates intentionally let others know they were withholding their study notes – or worse, gave others the wrong information for exams.

I, too, regrettably participated in the widely encouraged practice of planning my project groupings one semester ahead. The possibility of having a teammate who was “less academically inclined” pull down everyone’s grade point average was unfathomable.

Over the years, efforts have been made to eradicate, or at least address, this kiasu mentality. The Education Ministry’s subject-based banding, for instance, aims to cultivate diverse abilities and a love for learning. 

Experts at the Singapore Perspectives 2024 conference, organised by the Institute of Policy Studies, have also suggested that creating a less hyper-competitive society can help youth feel less weary about their future. In such a society, individuals would be valued for their contributions without being compared against another.

Such conversations are all well and good, but they do tend to conflate being kiasu with staying competitive – two distinctly different motivations.

COMPETING TO WIN, NOT TO AVOID LOSING

In my personal experience, kiasu people may claim they want to win, but their actions are chiefly driven by a scarcity mindset. Their fear of losing far outweighs their love for winning – an ultimately self-defeating motivation that keeps one small, no matter how big the achievement. 

At work, for example, kiasu people may focus on grabbing career opportunities not because they truly value such opportunities, but so that others are left without. 

Competitive people, on the other hand, fundamentally operate from a growth mindset. We are driven foremost by a desire to be the best, with an inborn need to excel and achieve. 

But we don’t just compete in anything and everything. We compete to win – or not at all. 

This means we readily avoid contests where winning seems unlikely, including for intrinsic reasons. If a misalignment of values makes competing feel pointless, or if we lack the interest or purpose to beat the competition, we step away.

Take the stark contrast between my time in polytechnic and university. 

In the former, I found joy in learning for the first time. Not only did I enjoy the rigorous and diverse curriculum in my mass communication diploma, the highly competitive environment also spurred me and my peers to pursue excellence – primarily out of sheer love of the craft.

I faced invigorating, if intimidating, competition among the supposed creme de la creme of budding media practitioners. And it was one of my most intense and character-defining experiences. 

Things changed when I entered a university here. I felt suffocated by what I perceived to be an unshakeable kiasu mentality, which included “mugging” for final exams from Week 1 by holing up in the campus library even on weekends.

The goal, it seemed, was less about getting ahead than not falling behind.

Despite performing well in my first semester, it was no longer a race I wanted to run, let alone win. I stopped chasing grades and prioritised getting part-time work experience instead – a decision that I initially feared would make me less competitive. 

It wasn't until later that I realised my competitive nature was precisely why it had been an easy decision to shift my priorities. Stepping away or backing down isn't a loss to competitive people when the win won’t mean anything to us.

COMPARISON FUELS GROWTH, NOT INSECURITY 

For a win to have any real significance, though, the result must be compared against others. 

In an ideal world, it would be enough for us to measure our progress solely against our previous achievements. But unless you work in total isolation forever, it doesn't really serve to pretend professional growth exists in a vacuum. 

Competitive people tend to regard external comparison as an essential tool to improve both competence and confidence instead. 

It’s often not enough to surpass our competitors. Excellence comes from setting and meeting our own high standards as well – which first requires benchmarking ourselves against those who push us to step up our game, not just any random competitor or our own track record.

Kiasu people, however, are likely to experience comparison as the much-maligned “thief of joy”. When you're more concerned with avoiding perceived failure than pursuing excellence, comparison is more likely to breed insecurity. 

This fear-based mindset doesn’t just hinder growth. It’s fundamentally incompatible with the risk-taking, winner’s mindset that true competitiveness demands.

I admit, competitive people may experience the sucker punch of defeat more intensely than the average person.

But we also understand that for every competition to have a winner, someone must lose. And while we may be that loser at times, we’re not fuelled by the need to avoid that possibility.

HOW COMPETITIVE, KIASU BEHAVIOUR AFFECTS OTHERS 

Even though the differences between competition and kiasu mentality are clear to me now, it hasn't been easy to always get right, especially when society tends to treat the two traits interchangeably. 

I still occasionally struggle to ensure my competitive nature doesn’t turn into or appear as off-putting kiasu behaviour. And the latter is far more challenging.

For example, I’ve often felt compelled to tone down my zealousness when I pitch ideas at work lest it’s misconstrued as being kiasu or “spoil market” (making others look bad in comparison). Even though I see this as being on the ball, I sometimes cave in to my fear of how others may judge me.

Similarly, I’m aware that overcorrecting this kiasu mentality may lead to hollow attempts to frame success as a purely personal journey, captured in mantras like “run your own race” and “your only competition is yourself”.

Such ideas do promote self-improvement, but they can also paint healthy ambition and drive as a major source of burnout, or enable tall poppy syndrome. 

The latter describes a social phenomenon where “tall poppies” or those striving for excellence face resentment, ridicule or pressure to conform to the status quo. In such environments, individualism and exceptionalism are often met with criticism rather than celebration, leading many to downplay their aspirations or successes to avoid alienation.

Though tall poppy syndrome might not show up as excessive caution or over-preparation like kiasu behaviour, it seems to mirror the same deep-seated insecurity.

For decades, I tried tempering my competitive nature, as though it was shameful to go all out to achieve the best. In hindsight, my efforts bore no fruit because being competitive was never the real issue.

The problem was, like it is for most of society, mistaking my desire to win for a desire not to lose.

In my experience, culture makes all the difference. 

In the right school and workplace environment, competition feels uplifting, not stifling.

Personally, I know I’m surrounded by like-minded competitors when any intimidation I feel inspires me to stretch myself and raise my bar to meet theirs, as opposed to shrinking myself to avoid “losing” anymore. 

That’s also the energy I’ve always aimed to emulate as a team member. But it's behaviour I once assumed was at odds with the individualistic nature of competitiveness – until the CliftonStrengths test enlightened me on the benefits of having a team member with a high Competition theme. 

Unlike being kiasu, competition isn’t about self-preservation.

In a team, wanting to win can create a healthy rivalry and greater culture of success where people are encouraged to set higher goals, both individually and collectively, ultimately helping everyone thrive. 

So maybe this contentious trait of mine isn't a weakness like I'd always believed. And perhaps the key to distinguishing competitiveness from the pitfalls of kiasu behaviour isn’t about what I do, but why.  

Grace Yeoh is a correspondent with CNA Lifestyle.

If you have an experience to share or know someone who wishes to contribute to this series, write to voices [at] mediacorp.com.sg with your full name, address and phone number.