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I have a Project Euler (https://projecteuler.net/) account. Though I do not register at all on the leader board I will sometimes work obsessively on a problem just to make one of the level icons light up for me. There is not really competition just a tiny reward.

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That makes a lot of sense.

What surprised me is that even without direct competition, any visible signal of “progress” or “ranking” seems to trigger the same behavior.

In my case it wasn’t about beating others either, but about seeing yourself slightly higher than yesterday.

It feels very close to what you describe with Project Euler: not competition, but a quiet personal challenge.

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