I get this. Having no formal education, I could never compete with others at all! You will never (and should never) find me atop a leaderboard. I am just not qualified!
But I gamify iNaturalist for myself a bit. One example is how I said above, in challenging myself to say the species (or common) name before the CV can suggest it.
Another thing I do I thought of regarding the “Pokemon” example: There is a genus of flies here called, Condylostylus. They are lovely, long-legged things that pose prettily, and like beach glass they can be spotted in multiple colors, like turquoise, light green (the most common), yellow, blue and copper.
But there are also wing variations and I am always on the lookout for new color/wing combinations.
The day I first spotted a rainbow one, I was in awe! (C. longicornis, for the record.)
This is me competing with me, my fiercest competitor. 