Competition in general is good for this, whether in sports, academics, science fairs, or just in general trying to build the best $something; whatever you're interested in. If you're consistently the top of one of those, then find a broader one where you're not. (And if you really are at the top of the world's highest competitions, congrats, you really are that good, but that's much less common than being the top student in a class of 30 kids; the latter is awesome and praiseworthy but should be kept in perspective.)
In that regard, it's all about calibration. If you're the smartest person in the room, good for you, but you should also find another room where there's more challenge to be had and more fun to be had.
Note that all levels of accomplishment are something to celebrate; I'm not suggesting the kind of "nothing is ever good enough" reaction that leads to kids doing things they don't actually have an interest in doing. However, when you find an area of interest, go deep into it and find creative challenges that push you to go even further.
Also, those kinds of competitions, whether sports or academic, aren't necessarily a sufficient view into human nature. For example, most competitions like that have a clear set of rules and take a dim view of cheaters, while many other aspects of life reward creatively "cheating" to get ahead over always doing things the long way like everyone else is. Consider how people talk about finding a creative solution that takes less work: "I could have written a complete implementation of $foo myself, but I cheated by hacking $bar into mostly doing it for me, and it worked well enough to get the job done." See also Larry Wall's praise of "laziness, impatience, and hubris".
A consistent process and consistent rules produces consistent results; that's good for not doing worse than normal, but it also means you'll never find a way to do better than normal.
Find ways to reward creative solutions over unthinking rule-following. Play games that rely on creative deception and hidden information. In a competition with rules, follow the rules; in life, have a set of principles you live by, but don't automatically respect every arbitrary rule, especially the implicit unwritten ones that nobody questions. Just make sure you understand the implications and consequences, because it might be there for a reason rather than solely for the sake of arbitrariness.
In that regard, it's all about calibration. If you're the smartest person in the room, good for you, but you should also find another room where there's more challenge to be had and more fun to be had.
Note that all levels of accomplishment are something to celebrate; I'm not suggesting the kind of "nothing is ever good enough" reaction that leads to kids doing things they don't actually have an interest in doing. However, when you find an area of interest, go deep into it and find creative challenges that push you to go even further.
Also, those kinds of competitions, whether sports or academic, aren't necessarily a sufficient view into human nature. For example, most competitions like that have a clear set of rules and take a dim view of cheaters, while many other aspects of life reward creatively "cheating" to get ahead over always doing things the long way like everyone else is. Consider how people talk about finding a creative solution that takes less work: "I could have written a complete implementation of $foo myself, but I cheated by hacking $bar into mostly doing it for me, and it worked well enough to get the job done." See also Larry Wall's praise of "laziness, impatience, and hubris".
A consistent process and consistent rules produces consistent results; that's good for not doing worse than normal, but it also means you'll never find a way to do better than normal.
Find ways to reward creative solutions over unthinking rule-following. Play games that rely on creative deception and hidden information. In a competition with rules, follow the rules; in life, have a set of principles you live by, but don't automatically respect every arbitrary rule, especially the implicit unwritten ones that nobody questions. Just make sure you understand the implications and consequences, because it might be there for a reason rather than solely for the sake of arbitrariness.