POWER YOUR OWN

COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY

We've all heard this. We all know this. We all know we shouldn't do it, for our own sake, because who really cares about anyone else. But are we aware at how deeply comparison can root itself into our lives??

Forgive me if this post seems a bit all over the place.....well, because I can see the the idea reaching into almost every aspect of life. Hopefully I'll delete both of these lines when I edit.

Power Your Own. This 'tag line' came to me when a lifter was extremely upset about the progress that had been made or not been made. What struck me most were a couple of comments. 1) "I'm sure you all are sick of hearing about this, seeing this, going through this...." 2) All I want is to look like like 'that' when I lift (in reference to another lifter). The first thing I thought was, "sick of what?"....which brings to me to my point. Comparison is the thief of joy. By comparing, we rob ourselves of the journey. We rob ourselves of learning. We rob ourselves from actually getting better at anything.

I have two young children. When it comes to learning, through my own life and through their lives, I can tell you that it doesn't matter how many times I try to tell them not to touch something hot, not to do something dangerous, not to do it this way or do it this way or do it that way. NONE OF IT MATTERS until they figure it out on their own. Their greatest growth and greatest moments come from struggle. The point of this is, I can't REALLY compare my own experiences to theirs and expect them to learn from it. It is my job as a parent (as I have decided anyway) to lead them down a path of discovering the power that exists within them. When we are young, adults have all the answers, They make every choice for us. Don't know what a word means? Ask your teacher. Don't know what to wear? Ask your Mom. Don't know how to change your oil? Ask your Dad. This becomes ingrained us from birth. We hammer dependent thinking into our children from the get go. Unfortunately this bleeds over into adulthood as comparison. Hmmmmmm, I'm a 30 year old adult with a college degree, I suppose I should have a 9-5 job and be married and have/or think about having children. BUT, what IF you don't wanna? Well I say, if you don't wanna, you don't gotta. BUT, if you don't, and let those societal 'rules' weigh in on you, let those friends of yours eat away at you, and let that social media get to you, you are letting comparison rob you of joy.

The same goes for lifting. I am guilty of it. Probably really guilty of it. I wasted a bunch of time chasing records and comparing myself to others as opposed to actually getting better. I also spent a bunch of time giving away credit for anything I did (still guilty of this). This is two different ends of the spectrum, but the other end rarely gets addressed and is something I think is a chronic trend among female athletes in particular. I haven't noticed it so much among male athletes, but it probably exist. Female achieves something great, she is awesome, everyone is paying attention to her. What's the first thing she does? GIVES EVERY OUNCE OF CREDIT AWAY. I encourage you to pay attention to the questions that are asked and the answers that are given in the media. She writes a recap, or a post or whatever with paragraph after paragraph of why everyone/everything else is responsible for her success except her. I'm kinda over that. I like having coaches, programming, training partners and all of their opinions, but at the end of the day, I'm the one that has to do the work. No one else is going to lift the weight, no one else is going to eat the food, no one else, not even my competitors, are going to motivate me become a better lifter except ME. I've accepted that responsibility, and I'm freakin pumped about it.

A fellow lifter, Dani Overcash, recently wrote a recap of her last meet, and it is exactly what 'power your own' means. It is your own identity. It is your own experience. It is accepting and believing in what you're capable of and being unapologetic about it. The moment you stop comparing yourself to others, the moment you decide you will only focus on yourself and your journey, that is when you will discover confidence. That is the moment you will stop robbing yourself of joy. That is the moment you will begin to power your own story.

#poweryourown