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Dare to compare?

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” It’s funny to think about that phrase. I read it and say to myself, there are no truer words than those. But then it happens. I fall right back into that mental self-talk that is just not the greatest for me to hear. It’s a never-ending process of talking to myself then talking myself out of talking to myself this way, because I know it’s not good for me, right? What benefit could I possibly have from telling myself, “you’re still not on their level”, “you need to start training harder to catch up”, “why am I not better at this stuff? She just started!!”.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

For those that don’t know, I’ve been in the CrossFit game a little while. I started at the ripe age of 21, March 2014. Like many of us I found CrossFit somewhat accidentally and immediately fell in love with it. I was a varsity softball player in high school, played intramurals in college, and just fell off being physically active. When I was challenged to try CrossFit, I was terrified. I remember looking at the people who did it and thinking I could never do what they do. 5 years later, I can do somethings, but still not everything. And that is O K. It’s hard to understand sometimes in my mind that I’ve been in this sport for so long, but then again not long enough. In those 5 years I was finishing my undergrad degree, only CrossFitting for the 6 months I could afford to, and then working my first full time job post college with crazy hours. So realistically I was probably training half the amount of time that accumulated in that time period. People who started their journey after me, were now surpassing me. They were lifting heavier than me, running faster than me, were able to do gymnastics movements that I wasn’t even close to doing. It wasn’t until I had a breakdown after a class that I finally realized that I was keeping myself in that position. A wise coach once said to me, after I mentioned how different things could be if I had only started my journey sooner, “Yea, but that’s not your story”.

That’s what I keep in the back of my mind when I start to get on myself about my progress. Without my journey, my story, everything would be different. Another person’s journey is not mine, and vice versa. The point of challenging ourselves and going through our journeys is to find our own individual path. To write our own story. So, the next time you look at the leader board or see someone else excelling in class, congratulate them. Let them know that their hard work is paying off because you never know what their journey has been, what their story is.

Everyone’s story is different and that is what makes every story great. 

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