When participating in a trading contest, you do not have to set such a goal as getting on the leaderboard. Keep trading, just like you always do. And if as a result of such trading you additionally receive any prize for participating in a trading contest, then this will be an additional bonus for you.
I agree with your approach as people need to know risk of joining trading contest. If they force themselves to trade abnormally than what they usually do with their trading activities, they will self derail from their good track to bad one.
Forcing themselves to trade more, will possibly lead to discipline break that can be start of their losses from trading and even nightmare for their trading capital too. Appearing in top of leaderboard in trading contest never should be their only goal to reach, because a most important goal of any trader is "Defend and protect their initial trading capital as most safest as possible."
Because if you force yourself, the tendency is to push yourself even if you know the risk is higher. Hence, losing is inevitable in this process. Better do what you usually do, and execute your trade as usual. In that manner, you will apply what you have been learning in your trading journey.