Stop it.
If you’re making baby steps towards your goal, you’ll be miles ahead in no time. But you’ll never feel like you’ve gotten anywhere by comparing yourself to others.
Don’t compare your chapter 1 with chapter 20 of someone else’s book. (Thank you to my friend Betty Rocker for this!)
Measure yourself against who YOU were yesterday, not who someone else IS today.
You’ve got your OWN story, your own struggles, and you’re going to have your own triumphs, too.
Let others stories inspire you and not weigh you down.
Keep in mind that you’re being watched. It’s quite likely that your actions and the pursuit of YOUR dreams is inspiring someone else and you might not even realize it.
Too often people (especially those new to fitness) get discouraged by making comparisons to what they see others doing or how they look. It’s a good reminder to work at our own pace, make our own progress and celebrate our own victories.
I get upset when I see people (especially women) compare themselves to others.
To that end, I posted an unedited 6 am pre-workout selfie on Facebook and Instagram and the same pic using a filter:
You can also see the horrible picture and all the support I got on my Facebook wall here (you’ll have to scroll down to April 12th, 2015 – Feel free to like or comment).
Basically, I wanted to get the message out that it everyone seems to compare themselves to what they see as ‘real’ (which is often the ‘unreal’) and when they do, they always comes up short.
My unedited pic was atrocious, but it was real. It made me feel a little horrible about myself, but it likely gave hope to others who also wake up looking like a train wreck.
It was worth it to me to demonstrate that what we see online isn’t necessarily reality and that peeps should stop comparing themselves to others.
This was a demonstration of the physical, but it applies to all aspects of life.
Comparing yourself to others is a recipe for low self esteem.
It’s liberating and better for me to look at how far I’ve come versus where I need to go or where others are. I feel better about myself knowing that I’m creating my OWN story at my own pace and as long as I’m making progress this is good enough.
I AM GOOD ENOUGH. And so are you.
Okay, off my soap box now and it’s time to take some of those baby steps forward where fitness is concerned.
Here are a few awesome things that you may have missed this week:
If you want abs like a fighter => Go here.
If you want an amazing cookbook => Go here.
If you want a nice bum => Go here.
And here was my early morning back focused workout for you:
Back It Up!
Count Down 10 to 1 for these exercises:
- Burpee pull up (burpee or full body extenstion and then pull up alternative like a wall stick up, band pull, DB row etc)
- DB renegade row (bodyweight option: plank alternate leg lift)
- DB goblet squat (bodyweight option: prisoner squat)
- Push Up
- DB bicep curls wall sit (bodyweight option: wall sit stick up)
Try to finish in under 25 minutes.
That’s it for me today – Go look in the mirror and remind yourself that you’re an amazing person. I’ll do the same – and let’s just forget all about that 6 am pre-workout photo of me shall we?