Competition does not mean there is no room for you. It only means you have decided to measure yourself against exactly what others are doing. That is a choice, not a law.

The garden allows many fruits to grow. There is room for all of them. Nothing in the soil says that the apple tree must fail because the pear tree is flowering beside it.

Go and visit a vegetable market. Walk the length of it. Stall after stall, the same potatoes, the same onions, the same apples. Nobody packs up and goes home because the neighbours on either side are selling precisely what they are selling. Somehow, the Universe caters for everybody present.

Consider three sellers, each with 100 pounds of apples. The first prices his at £4 a pound, the second at £3, the third at £2.

The £4 seller offers to buy the whole of the £2 seller’s stock at his asking price. The £2 seller accepts, pockets his £200, and goes home early. He has received everything he came for.

The £4 seller now holds 200 pounds of apples and drops his price to £3. He and the remaining seller trade side by side at the same price, selling at the same steady pace. When the £3 seller has sold his last pound, he goes home with £300 – everything he came for.

One seller remains, with 100 pounds still in his crates. He returns his price to £4 and sells the rest.

£300 from the first hundred, £400 from the second, less the £200 he paid out. £500 in hand, against the £400 he set out to make that morning. One hundred pounds more than he came for.

Nobody lost. The one who was quickest to leave got what he wanted. The one who stayed got what he wanted. The one who saw the whole market rather than only his own stall got a little more than he wanted – not by taking from the others, but by making their aims part of his own.

That is what competition looks like when it is seen from above rather than from the inside. Three people with the same fruit, three different prices, three full pockets. The market did not run out of room. It never does.

Core idea: Aiming to be the absolute best or highest sets you up for frequent disappointment because the absolute top is rare, relative, and often outside your full control. Instead, define a clear, realistic level of achievement that you control. Reach it consistently, and treat anything better as an unexpected bonus rather than a requirement. This shifts the focus from fragile external ranking to reliable personal progress and satisfaction.

Comprehensive example

Imagine a fruit-market trader who sells apples from a wooden stall (similar to the three identical stalls side by side).

  • Unhelpful approach: He tells himself, “I must be the highest earner here every day.” He watches the neighbouring stalls constantly. If the seller on his left prices at £3 per pound and sells out by noon, or the one on his right at £2 undercuts him and draws a queue, he feels defeated even if his own stall did solid trade at £4. His mood and next-day decisions swing with every comparison. Most days he ends disappointed because someone else will almost always look “higher” by some metric (volume, profit margin, footfall, or pure luck of the day).
  • Better approach: He sets a clear, self-defined level of achievement before the market opens: “Sell at least 40 kg of apples at an average of £3.50 per pound and cover my stall costs plus a modest profit.” The target is specific, measurable, and largely within his control (quality of display, friendliness, consistent pricing, and stock management). He focuses on hitting that number. When he reaches it by mid-afternoon he has already succeeded. If a late rush or a nearby stall running out of stock pushes him to 55 kg or a slightly higher average price, that extra is a genuine bonus—he enjoys it without having needed it. On a quieter day he still meets his target by adjusting display or offering a small end-of-day bundle; he finishes satisfied rather than demoralised. Over weeks this builds steady income, lower stress, and better decision-making because his sense of success no longer depends on ranking higher than the stalls to his left or right.