Two studies were run to explore the relations between a conflict of competences (i.e., a situation in which two competent individuals present divergent solutions to the same task), counterfactual thinking, and performance. The first study shows that individuals who imagine themselves in a situation involving a conflict of competences generate more intensive subtractive than additive counterfactual thoughts. The second study tested the impact of a conflict of competences on performance in an anagram task. A condition involving a mere conflict of competences was compared to one involving a conflict of competences with additive counterfactuals (known to improve performance) and one involving a conflict of competences with subtractive counterfactuals (known to have no such effect on performance). As predicted, the performance of participants in the condition involving a mere conflict of competences and in that involving subtractive counterfactuals was inferior to that of participants in the condition involving additive counterfactuals.