I still remember being in Primary 2, the exact kind of memory that stays sharp even when many others blur. My teacher told me I had improved a lot. Not just a vague “good job,” but a real, tangible acknowledgment. She showed me how my mathematics and science grades had been steadily climbing over the months, and she said—almost casually, but with confidence—that these subjects would soon become my forte. I remember the warmth of that moment, the sense that effort mattered, that growth was visible. I walked home that day beaming, already rehearsing how I would show my parents my report card. Pride sat lightly in my chest, uncomplicated and whole.
That feeling didn’t survive very long.
My father looked at my report card and pointed out my class position. Eighth. He said it plainly, then followed it with what felt, to a child, like a verdict: there were seven students better than me. If they could do better, why couldn’t I? Just like that, the narrative shifted. Improvement no longer mattered. Context no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered was where I stood relative to others. The joy I carried home evaporated, replaced by a quiet, sinking sense that I had failed some invisible standard.
That moment planted something in me. From then on, showing my results to my father filled me with anxiety. I learned to brace myself before sharing anything I had achieved, scanning for what might be lacking, who might still be ahead of me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, comparison became a habit. Not just noticing others, but measuring myself against them, again and again, until “not good enough” felt like a default setting. Not good enough in isolation, but not good enough in comparison.
Psychologists have long studied this instinct to compare. Leon Festinger’s social comparison theory, first proposed in 1954, suggests that humans have an innate drive to evaluate themselves, often by comparing their abilities and achievements with those of others. This tendency is not inherently harmful. In some cases, comparison can be motivating, offering a sense of direction or possibility. But Festinger also noted that upward comparison—comparing ourselves to those we perceive as better—can just as easily produce dissatisfaction, anxiety, and diminished self-worth. For a child, especially one still forming a sense of identity, those effects can cut deep and last long.
What makes this kind of comparison particularly damaging is not just the act of comparing, but the meaning attached to it. When achievement is framed as a zero-sum ranking, improvement becomes irrelevant unless it results in dominance. This framing aligns closely with what educational psychologists call performance-oriented goals, where success is defined by outperforming others rather than by learning, growth, or mastery. Research by Carol Dweck and her colleagues in the 1980s and 1990s showed that children who were praised or evaluated primarily on performance outcomes were more likely to develop anxiety, avoid challenges, and give up when faced with difficulty. In contrast, children encouraged to focus on effort, strategy, and progress—what Dweck later described as a growth mindset—were more resilient and more willing to engage deeply with learning.
Looking back, what my teacher gave me that day was a mastery-based narrative. She showed me evidence of progress over time. She talked about potential, about what I was becoming good at, not how I ranked. What my father did, unintentionally or not, was overwrite that narrative with a performance-based one. From that point on, it didn’t matter how far I had come; it only mattered how far I was from the top.
And yet, life is not free of competition. I don’t think it ever can be. Even now, I can acknowledge that there are moments where comparison is structurally built into the system. When I submit proposals for funding or grants, I am undeniably competing against other artists for a limited pool of resources. Someone gets funded, someone doesn’t. Someone is selected, someone is not. In these contexts, pretending that comparison doesn’t exist would be naïve.
The question, then, is not whether competition exists, but how it is framed, internalized, and lived with. Is competition something that sharpens our work without eroding our sense of self, or does it quietly poison the very joy and creativity it claims to reward?
Self-determination theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, offers a useful lens here. Their research, spanning decades, suggests that human motivation is healthiest and most sustainable when three basic psychological needs are met: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When people feel they have agency over their work, when they feel capable and improving, and when they feel connected rather than isolated, motivation flourishes. Crucially, Deci and Ryan found that environments overly focused on external rewards, rankings, and comparisons tend to undermine intrinsic motivation—the internal drive to create, explore, and learn for its own sake.
This is particularly relevant for artists. Art, at its core, is supposed to spark curiosity, meaning, and joy. When artists begin to create primarily with comparison in mind—Who is doing better? Who is getting more recognition? Who is more successful?—the locus of motivation shifts outward. Studies on creativity, including work by Teresa Amabile, have shown that intrinsic motivation is one of the strongest predictors of creative output. When people are preoccupied with evaluation and external judgment, creativity narrows. Risk-taking decreases. The work may become technically competent but emotionally cautious.
So how do we promote a competitive spirit without feeding anxiety? How do we acknowledge real-world competition without letting it hollow us out?
One healthier approach is to reframe competition as information rather than judgment. In this framing, others’ successes are not verdicts on our worth, but data points about what is possible, what is valued in a particular context, or what strategies might be effective. This aligns with research on adaptive social comparison, where individuals use comparison to learn and improve rather than to self-criticize. Studies have found that when people compare with a learning orientation—asking “What can I learn from this?” instead of “What does this say about me?”—the negative emotional impact of comparison is significantly reduced.
Another important shift is separating identity from outcome. This is easier said than done, especially when we grow up in environments where outcomes are treated as proxies for worth. But psychological research consistently shows that when people tie their self-esteem too tightly to performance, they become more vulnerable to anxiety and burnout. In contrast, individuals with what is sometimes called secure self-esteem—rooted in values, effort, and self-acceptance rather than constant validation—are better able to navigate competitive environments without losing their footing.
There is also growing interest in what researchers call self-referenced evaluation. Instead of asking, “How do I rank?” the question becomes, “How have I grown?” Studies in educational and organizational psychology suggest that self-referenced goals—measuring progress against one’s past self—are associated with greater persistence, lower anxiety, and higher satisfaction. This doesn’t eliminate competition, but it changes its psychological weight. You can still submit your work for grants, still face rejection or success, but the internal metric remains anchored to your own trajectory rather than someone else’s highlight reel.
Interestingly, even in highly competitive fields, collaboration has been shown to enhance both performance and well-being. Research on cooperative competition, sometimes referred to as “coopetition,” suggests that environments which encourage shared learning, peer feedback, and mutual support can maintain high standards without fostering hostility or fear. For artists, this might look like critique groups, collectives, or communities where success is not treated as scarce or mutually exclusive, but as something that can ripple outward.
It’s also worth acknowledging the emotional residue of early experiences. The anxiety I feel when showing my results to authority figures didn’t come from nowhere. It was learned. And what is learned can, slowly and imperfectly, be unlearned. Developmental psychologists emphasize that early evaluative experiences often shape our inner critic—the voice that anticipates judgment before it even arrives. Becoming aware of where that voice came from doesn’t magically silence it, but it does give us some distance. We can begin to ask whose standards we are carrying, and whether they still deserve so much power over us.
In recent years, mindfulness-based interventions have also been studied as tools for reducing the harmful effects of comparison. Research suggests that mindfulness practices can help individuals notice comparative thoughts without immediately believing or obeying them. Instead of spiraling into self-judgment, people learn to observe comparison as a mental habit—one that arises, peaks, and passes. For creatives, this can be especially valuable, offering a way to stay present with the work itself rather than constantly projecting into imagined evaluations.
Ultimately, I don’t think the goal is to eliminate comparison entirely. That would be unrealistic, and perhaps even undesirable. Comparison can orient us, challenge us, and push us to refine our craft. But comparison needs boundaries. It needs context. It needs to be held lightly, not used as a weapon against the self.
What I wish my younger self had been told is this: improvement is not invalidated by someone else’s excellence. Being eighth does not erase growth. Another person’s success does not negate your own becoming. These truths feel obvious when stated plainly, yet they are surprisingly difficult to live by in cultures that reward ranking over reflection.
If art is meant to spark creativity and joy, then the systems and mindsets surrounding it must make room for those qualities to survive. Healthier competition is not about pretending the race doesn’t exist, but about refusing to let the race define our worth. It’s about remembering that the most meaningful measure is not how many people are ahead of us, but whether we are still moving, still learning, still creating with some sense of aliveness intact.
And maybe, in reclaiming that perspective, we slowly undo the damage of old report cards, old comments, old comparisons—replacing them with something quieter, steadier, and far more sustaining.
Written by: Adi Jamaludin
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