Healthy competition (sort of)

I have always had a competitive streak but only if I think I can win. This is, of course, the only sensible way to be.

When you're competitive but not particularly gifted in many areas, you are setting yourself up for a fall. My method is that of conservative competition.

When it comes to team games, I'm as uncompetitive as they come and about things I have no control over — like anything that comes down to luck or the skill of others — I feel the same.

I honestly don't care whether my home country wins the World Cup (in fact I would rather they didn't, to save the endless gloating that would ensue — I mean, England still drones on about 1966 to this day).

I am also the only person in the world who doesn't know who won Wimbledon (or even when it was held). Nope, if I'm not involved, I don't care.

However, when I have a sneaky suspicion that I'm good at something, the competitiveness comes out in full force. And it's ugly.

Take swimming, for instance. I am a good swimmer and I may go as far as to say that I am very good. This is a novelty for me, because I am generally not a very sporty person.

But for some obscure reason, I can swim and swim and swim for hours and not get tired.

I get a secret thrill out of lapping past people in the pool when they don't even realise they're racing me. It gets ridiculous.

At one point, I was competing against myself and every time I swam, I would push myself a bit more.

That's how I ended up spending three nights a week swimming upwards of 200 lengths of an Olympic-sized pool.

For the sake of having a life, I had to calm that down a little. However, I'm starting to be the same with yoga.

If there's one exercise where competitiveness is ugly and discouraged, it is yoga.

But unfortunately, the only time I can get “the buzz'' of exercise that gym regulars talk about is if I'm doing it better than somebody who has been doing it for longer — or thinks of themselves as fitter.

I'm flexible, so I have a natural advantage. But yoga loses its “zen'' vibe somewhat when it brings out this aggressive side.

I'm the same with former work colleagues (particularly those I didn't like). Yes, it's a horrible quality but, at the same time, it's also a great motivator to set your career alight and go and do something amazing.

Believe me, it's a great feeling when you find out that the patronising ex-boss of yours is still stuck in the same dead-end job while you have progressed and perhaps even overtaken her on the career ladder.

I have a good friend whose first thought when she gets promoted is that she hopes her incompetent ex-boss finds out.

OK, so it's probably not healthy but if we didn't have other people to measure our progress against, where would we find out motivation?

Competitiveness is a particular driving force for me when somebody tells me I can't do something. I remember a woman once told me I could never be a size 10.

She said it about eight years ago and I haven't made it yet — but I am determined I will one day, even if she never finds out.
I'm not sure what my point really is, other than: Don't try to take me on in the swimming pool — you will lose.