It’s no secret that one of the quickest ways to identify that the self-saboteur is in the house is by catching thoughts of comparison to others.
“He makes more money than I do”
“She’s in better shape than I am.”
“People seem to like him more than they like me.”
“Wow, I’ll never be as good at running a business as she is.”
These thoughts certainly don’t lift us up and make us feel good – so why, oh why, does our brain run this constant comparathon to how others are doing?
We are taught at a young age, that as social beings, we exist in a world where others are our competition. To get into the best schools, we’ve got to earn better grades than our classmates. To get onto the best athletic teams, we’ve got to score the most goals, more than our competition and even our teammates.
Quite simply, this is how we are conditioned to determine where we stand in the human “race”.
Look to your left, look to your right – how are you measuring up? Are you winning or losing?
The problem with this mentality is that there will always be people to your left and your right who are slightly further ahead on the track than you are. And that may have nothing to do with ability – it may simply be that they’re older, or have been on the track longer than you (for example).
One cardinal rule in the game of life: never compare your chapter 2 to somebody else’s chapter 8.
While looking to the right or the left to determine how you measure up and therefore, what you should feel about yourself, may “work” when you find your counter parts slightly behind you on the track – it’s a temporary lift that just sets you up to fall the second you spot the next girl/guy slightly ahead of you again.
We challenge you today to see if you can catch the self-saboteur using this broken strategy for confidence and motivation – practice releasing those thoughts and replacing them for gratitude that you’re running YOUR race to the best of your ability. That is the way you win YOUR race after all 🙂
-Coach Susan
