I have learned a lot on my journey to get here – both about mental health and mindset and physical health, nutrition and fitness. So when I’m asked what are a few pieces of advice I can offer I almost always think “Just a few! But there’s so much important stuff and so much of it goes hand in hand!” But truly if someone came to me wanting to get healthy and only would take one piece of advice from me, I would without exception tell them that the most important thing I have learned is this – comparison is the thief of joy.
That is it. If I leave you with absolutely nothing else but that, then you will be better off.
Why is this the most important thing? Think about it, have you ever done something you thought was great but then saw someone else do something a little flashier and been left feeling like what you did really isn’t even good enough? Or been extremely happy with your results on something you’ve been working really hard on only to see someone else get slightly better results and then feel like all the hard work was pointless?
I can give you a million examples like that – how about following a personal trainer’s exact “what I eat in a day!” meal plan but were left wondering why you didn’t lose any weight? Or gotten dressed for a party and were absolutely feeling your look but got there and saw someone else rocking a whole different vibe and suddenly felt like you missed the mark? Accomplished something huge for you only to have someone dismiss it and brag about someone else’s achievements instead?
Here is why comparison doesn’t work – no one can possibly have all the same conditions as you do, starting right from genetics and going all the way through life experience, family situation, natural strengths and weaknesses, personal interests, age, socioeconomic status…actually I couldn’t possibly go all the way through what can be different about us because the list goes on and on. Even what bacteria you’ve been exposed to has shown to have a massive impact on an untold number of our bodily functions. It’s mind boggling.
But when we’re making comparisons we only see the similarities because it makes it easy to make sweeping assumptions – if she can, then I must be able to, and if I can’t then something is wrong with me. (More on this absolutely torturous thinking another week.)
When I started running I actually hated running. I was convinced I had never really been any good at it as a kid (you know when I never tried for more than a minute and found approximately 1,286 reasons why I couldn’t participate in gym?) and that it was a fate worse than death. But I wanted to set a fitness goal that I HAD to stick to because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to accomplish what I publicly said I would do. So one year at the end of March I signed up for a half-marathon that took place near the end of October. (If you aren’t familiar with running a half-marathon is 21.1 Km.) At the time I could “run” about 90 seconds before my lungs feeling like they were bursting into flames made me stop. I knew if I didn’t do the training I would NEVER accomplish this goal, so I posted it on social media, I told people I was doing it, talked about it with anyone who had ears, did my research, established my training schedule and set out running. The training was not perfect and I got injured by the end of July but I continued to push through (more on this down the road too – the pushing through, not necessarily a stellar idea). I ran my first half marathon that year as planned. Crossing that finish line was the single proudest moment of my life. I have never had to work so hard for anything as I had to work to get to the end of that race over that eight month period.
BUT when I checked my stats after the fact they tell you where you placed overall, and how you placed for your gender and age group. And for a moment, seeing how low I was in my age/gender range made me feel kinda bad. Completely forgetting that 8 months before this I would have struggled to WALK 21 Km’s, nevermind run it AND I was injured. In that moment I was less proud of what I did because I was comparing it to what a giant group of women I didn’t even know had done. I knew absolutely nothing about how long they’d been running, what their nutrition was like, if they were genetically more predisposed to running – nothing. Yet I let it taint what I had worked my ass off for for nearly a year.
And for what? Who else cared about where I was in those standings other than me? No one. My family was blown away by me doing that race. My sister’s were so excited that I could hear their screams over the entire crowd at the finish line. At no point did anyone ask where I placed for my age and/or sex.
Even if I did know what all those other people did to prepare for the race it wouldn’t necessarily have had any impact on my performance; just because someone gets different results than you do or approaches something differently doesn’t mean it’s better – it just means that it’s what works for them. A good example of this is following fitness influencers on Instagram – just because they drink tart cherry juice for post workout recovery and swear by their percussive massage gun doesn’t mean you also need those things or that they will get you better results. Those people workout for a living and are often paid to promote products. Literally they spend their time coming up with content and working out. They move a lot and the required nutrition and recovery measures they take to stay able to do that are big commitments. If you workout an hour each day but have a desk job you probably don’t need the added calories of juice or to spend your very hard earned dollars on massage guns for the minor recovery benefits they may provide you…not to say that they might not be beneficial, they might, but they aren’t going to make or break your progress and they’re far from necessary for most of us. Most people are better served focusing on eating nutritious whole food, getting enough protein, sleeping, stretching and taking appropriate recovery days. Comparing your needs (and the time you have available to see to those needs) and the needs of fitness professionals or professional athlete’s is like comparing fish and birds – their life requirements are completely different. As Albert Einstein put it “…if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”
So, the next time you start to feel “less than” because you’re seeing someone else doing something “better” or different than you take the time to ask yourself if what you are seeing is the whole picture. Are you happy with what you’re doing? Is what they’re doing maybe based on their circumstances being very different from yours? Did you even care about how your performance compared to anyone elses before you knew what they were doing? Are you willing or able to do what they did to get to where they are? Or most importantly – if you were happy with yourself and what you had going on before, does it really matter what anyone else is doing that differs? I can tell you for certain that most of the time, it doesn’t.
This is not to say that we can’t draw inspiration from others – we absolutely can. But there is a big difference between being inspired by someone/something and making comparisons to it – such a big difference in fact that I’m going to do a whole other post about that next week!
No one is perfect. We all have flaws and insecurities and you might be surprised to find that someone you feel inadequate next to actually feels the same beside you for different reasons you haven’t even thought of. But when you are trying to be someone else it will never be enough because there is always someone else to be. Stop trading your successes, your magic, your laughter, your blood, sweat and tears – your joy – for an intangible that can never be fulfilled. There is no comparison – you are one of a kind.
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