Doing Personal Work for Photography?

For me, doing personal work and not competition work has allowed me to explore things with no pressure at all. I can create a sing things that just exist in my head, and have no pressure that it's going to be scored or that it's being judged. For me, competition is always a learning experience. If i can continue to trend high and higher scores, i'm getting better as a photographer, and that's all i really care about.