Your question is complicated.
Some people compete because they are slaves to their ego. They want to WIN so, in essence, they can show off. A guy recently ran himself off doing that where I train. (One too many party fouls on the mat/and in etiquette)
Some people compete to see where they need to improve, or want to catapult their performance to another level, so it is a training tool, for them.
Some people compete because they are born competitors, and are differentiated from the first set of folks in the sense that it's an essential part of their being. They're not doing it because of the medal or so that other people can tell them they are great.
I'm a born competitor, and I'm personally embarrassed by praise or recognition - especially if I don't feel I earned it or if something seems simple (you don't get "points" in life for doing things you SHOULD do.) I've given away all but 4 medals I've ever earned in competition, and that's because those 4 mean something to me; they represent not the wins, but the years of hard work and 16-24 weeks of specific, boring, painful, exhausting competition prep where I learned to push my mind and my body much much further than I felt like, or ever thought I could. It sounds cliche, but when you feel like you are dying, because your breathing is ragged, your heart is pounding and your muscles won't MOVE, and you say "**** IT," and attack again, and it's for real, and made of DO, not "try...."
Well, there's something to that. You can take pride in that. A personal sense of accomplishment in doing something that requires real effort and all of your resources and capability to accomplish.
Winning - well, yeah you want to win - but it's almost incidental to that.
"In the world of martial arts, respect is often a given. In the real world, it must be earned."
"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. "--Bertrand Russell
"Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. "--Benjamin Disraeli
"A conservative government is an organised hypocrisy."--Benjamin Disraeli