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I used to be a hyper competitive waac type guy. I've gotten much better and matured a lot since I first started gaming, but what are some ways that you fine Dakkanauts avoid letting chasing the W go to your head?

See your opponents as human, and recognize it as just a game. I have things in my life that are way more awesome than 40K, and that keeps it in its place.

Yup pretty much that, aknowledge it's a game and have fun with your opponent whether you win or lose, I've had great laughs in 40k in some games were I kept rolling badly... so badly in fact it felt like a curse, but so much fun.

Don't be afraid to be silly. play around with your lists, feel free to run things that aren't optimal but "look like they could be amusing" etc

I play Hearthstone to get the W out of my head Nice, quick 5 minute highly competitive games where there's no point to playing other than to win.

Then, when I get together with friends to play tabletop wargames, it's 75% social / cool models / RPG-esque fluff, 25% competitive.

The other thing is, if you play with the same people all the time, it's actually not fun (for me) beating up the same guy with the same list over and over.

I only make fluffy lists, I only find the game fun when it makes sense in the universe!

Give yourself little mini-objectives. Play to your fluff - I might let an objective go as Tau because it would cost too many lives to take it. Pretend you're playing to the bigger picture. When I play as the orks, I have my mobs have competitions with each other to take the most/best trophies. It makes it more fun and having something secondary to play towards besides just the mission gives you something if you come up short on VPs. My last game with the Tau I lost on VPs but still had most of my units intact and inflicted heavy casualties. Sacrificing more troops to capture terrain would not have been for the greater good!

I just play with people who are also competitive. We have a solid group of 10-12 guys and we all bring lists full of cheese. When everyone brings a tournament list, nobody complains about anyone else's list. I'm working on ebaying all the stuff that I'll never use in that type of list.

Good advice all. I'd like to add don't play on bad days. If you're already stressed/overly tired and annoyed something like 40k with all of its rules, restrictions and general oddness can be overwhelming and just add gas to fire.

I guess it's mostly about why you sit down to the table each time. What you want to get out of it, and what you want to make sure your opponent goes home feeling.
I got into tabletop randomly one day because I started chatting to local players, and they were really nice, friendly people. So I played their games and started travelling because I could always find a way to laugh and have a good time.
Winning to me always comes a pale second to finishing with a gut ache from laughing too hard, or a smile from something you remember that day.
That's not to say I play to lose, but my priority is to enjoy myself and make sure the guy across from me does too. It's also not to say I'm a nice person. If someone is determined to be a mardy-arse child about playing, I will smack them down from orbit with an angelic grin and good grace.

Playing to a story or playing gimmick lists are my only defense against my own competitive nature. I also enjoy trying to find the path less traveled, with new or different combos, which can sometimes help.

I like to make things a little harder. For example, a couple weeks ago I had a 20-man Gargoyle brood get charged by a Dev Sgt and a ML Dev. After Overwatch, the ML was all that was left. When it cam time to start pile ins I intentionally moved my Gargoyles in such a way to move them out of Synapse. I then passed my morale test (after losing combat), and then wiped out half the gargoyles from a scattering Spore Mine Launcher. The ML Dev was the last model standing in my opponents army, and he held out till the end of Turn 5.

I make up a story for the game - just basic stuff to give context to things that happen during the game; then while i'm playing things are a bit more 'cinematic' (for want of a better word).