I tend to learn a lot of lessons from watching our 4 year old son Garrison. I firmly believe that even though we like to think of ourselves as experienced, mature, intelligent adults who have way more figured out than our kids, for the most part we’re pathetically similar.
Take an experience we had at a birthday party the other day. I’m sure this will be familiar to other parents out there.
Garrison had a full day of running around, playing games and celebrating his friend’s birthday. Time of his life type stuff. As with most children’s birthdays, this was capped off with birthday cake.
It should be noted that Garrison doesn’t eat a ton of sweets. In fact, if he even has a whiff of sugar, he turns into a pale gremlin-like creature. His little body just isn’t acclimated to the boost sugar gives him. To his chagrin, we just don’t give it to him often.
So when he was served a piece of cake, you’d think he’d be elated. Holy cow! Permitted sugar intake! This is amazing right?!!!
Right.
But only for a second.
As soon as the friend next to him was served, Garrison noticed that his friend’s cake was just slightly bigger than his own.
You’d think we’d given him a plate of steamed green beans and his friend an all access pass to Willy Wonka’s.
Ridiculous right?
Right.
Unfortunately, this is all too prevalent with people on their fitness and nutrition journeys. I see it first hand here at CrossFit Sandpoint where we are often testing and retesting our physical abilities as well as running nutrition challenges.
Inevitably, on a physical retest day or a body composition retest day, someone will achieve something they’d been seeking for a long, long time. They’re elated. Holy shit they did it! All the hard work paid off.
Then someone else turns in a faster time, or has a bigger body composition swing. That moment of elation melts away instantly.
Walk your own path. Let others be your inspiration, not your competition or your measuring stick.
Don’t live in a world of scarcity, where you think that their achievements somehow take away from yours.
“Their piece is bigger than my piece!!!”
Like we say in our house, “you do you.” Celebrate your hard work, your achievements and your milestones. You’ll be much, much happier in the long run, I promise.