You Are Not Your Competition

There is a quote I hear all of the time, or some variation of it, and it has never quite sat well with me. I heard it again recently and I just couldn’t let it lie. So I took it in and let myself truly examine my reaction.

I’m sure you’ve heard it before. 

“My only competition is the person I was yesterday.”

I know, logically, that it is supposed to be inspiring. I also know that it is supposed to help us see our friends, neighbors and communities as allies, teammates, collaborators on this journey. I know that it is supposed to motivate each of us to keep climbing that ladder, to keep at it, to keep learning more and to keep striving, each day, to be even better than we were the day before.

So if I know all of this… if I know that these words have such a pure, collaborative, friendly, growth-minded intention… why do they not make me feel better? Why do they not inspire me to great action and growth like I’m pretty sure they’re intended to?

Here’s the thing. I am, by nature, a competitive person. And I think that is okay. I work hard to focus on making sure that I keep a healthy mindset - to use competition to challenge myself to learn and see what I am capable of accomplishing, never to “beat” someone else. And maybe that’s part of what this quote intends.

But I’m not actually competing with another person. Actually, I’m not even competing with my past self.

And I think that’s because I understand that my past self… was a different person than who I am today. And that competing with her would be unfair to who I am now.

Maybe that doesn’t make sense to you. Let me try to explain.

I run. I enjoy running. And for a while, I was actually a really good runner. Considering I only started running in my adulthood, I was actually pretty fast. Each 5K race I ran, I strove to create a new Personal Record (PR), and for a while, I did just that.

But then I needed to take a break from running. I was using running as a crutch, and also as a tool in some very unhealthy patterns and mindsets in which I had become mired. I was, figuratively, trying to outrun my issues. And every PR, every medal, and every accolade from those around me let me hide just a little more. Let me think that I was doing something good for myself. Let me think that I was becoming the “best” runner I could be, and that maybe that meant I was also the best version of me that I could be.

But then I had to pause. To truly take care of myself. 

And when I re-entered the world of running, I had quite a “yesterday version of myself as a runner” with whom to compete.

And BOY did I fall short.

My 5K time was almost 10 minutes slower. What used to be my 10 mile endurance pace was now my sprint pace. It was… humbling. To say the very least,

And I couldn’t stop comparing me to me. And finding that I didn’t measure up.

Until I realized something.

That me that I was… that runner… that is not who I am today. And I can’t compete with her. And I shouldn’t compete with her.

She is an experience that I had. A lesson that I learned. She is an old friend. But she is not me. And she is not my competition.

Neither is the person I was last month, last week or even yesterday.

So do I still try to run fast? Do I still try to improve my pace, my endurance, my distance? Yes. But not because of anything that any previous version of me did.

My competition is not any other person. I’m not trying to win any medals or beat anyone else. I am not trying to prove anything to anyone.

If I had to put it into terms of with whom I am competing, I’d say that my competition is the demons in my mind. The gremlins in my head telling me to stop. The voice that tries to tell me that I should give up. The little troll trying to tell me what I can’t do.

I’ve learned that you can’t compete with someone who is not playing the same game. With someone who is not running the same race. With someone who is on a different path. And I’ve also learned that every day is an opportunity to discover my own path, and that I am not limited by the paths of my yesterdays.

So if healthy competition motivates you, that’s fantastic and I truly hope that it leads you to exactly where you need to be. But don’t let it limit you. And don’t let an old version of you make the decisions for the you of this moment.

Play your own game. Run your own race. Create your own path.