How Should You Deal with Competitive Peers in Your Career?

Right from childhood, you have to deal with that competitive person who is somehow always around. It can be your friend, neighbour or a co-worker who wants to grab the limelight. This person can provoke the feelings of inadequacy, irritation and anxiety in you.

All kinds of jobs ranging from Confluence jobs to Tosca jobs have such competitive peers. If such a person exists in your place of work then you need to be really careful as they don’t generally care whose toes they are treading on to reach the top. Let’s see how to deal with such competitive peers so that they don’t mess around with your career ambitions.

  1. Know Them: It is often said that keeping an enemy close and knowing about them is half the battle won. So, try to know more about them like what are their goals and priorities in life. This will help you in understanding their moves and also their perspective.

  1. Don’t Follow The ‘Tit for Tat’ Philosophy: Even if the peer’s attitude towards you is not good you try to maintain a certain decency. Giving back, in the same way, will only carry the animosity far enough, which will not be good for the organisation’s health and in turn will affect yours too.

  1. Be Friendly and Approachable: If your co-workers think that you are a friendly person they won’t see you as a threat. Your friendly and approachable nature will win them over and they won’t feel that you would sabotage their career progression in any way making them less hostile towards you.

  1. Hear Them Out: One who is working towards climbing the career ladder often needs his voice heard. Listen to them maintaining a certain curiosity in their suggestions and ideas and giving them a sense of validation by acknowledging it too from time to time. This will give them a sense of security and they will also feel obliged to listen to your ideas.

 

  1. Use Their Energy to Fuel Your Ambition

Healthy competition is often good for everyone’s health. Use the energy of the peer to fuel your own ambition. Having a high energy individual around who keeps pushing harder can be a motivation for you to strive harder for your dreams.

Having a really competitive peer around can result in triggering negativity in you, which will be harmful. Never try judging such person on any one perspective, but consider that competitiveness is just one aspect of his personality. Be clear about who you are and what you strive to achieve in life and this clarity will help you deal with such difficult persons with ease.