Wh you shouldn't compare yourself with yourself

Many of us have heard sayings related to you being your only competition and focusing on beating where you were yesterday. These are helpful in the sense that they keep you from comparing yourself with others. We each run our own race and should not worry what is happening for the next person. I just can’t help but wonder if competition serves us at all, even if it’s with ourselves. What if it actually interferes with accepting where we are today?

I thought of this because I haven’t quite been myself. I’ve hit a rough patch health-wise and because I haven’t been able to fuel my body sufficiently, I haven’t exercised as much. It’s been over a month since I’ve done much beyond teaching my regular fitness classes. I decided that I needed to ease back in to my own regimen, though, if I wanted to prevent regression.

The results so far? Well, let’s just say I’m in a much different place athletically right now. If I can muster the energy to jog a few minutes, I go much slower. If I can handle weight training, it’s with much lighter weights and fewer reps. Basically, my workouts are pretty wimpy compared to my personal records. But how fair is it to compare myself with my best when I haven’t been at my best?

I share this in hopes that you’ll let yourself off the hook. Life happens and so many factors impact our physical wellness: illness, injury, pregnancy, stress. Sometimes even in peak physical condition, energy levels fluctuate due to nutrition, hydration, or other hormonal and metabolic changes. The bottom line is we don’t always have to beat our best. Sometimes movement isn’t about recapturing some glory moment of the past. Sometimes movement is just celebrating that we can move, that we don’t have pain, that we have the strength to stand, that we can breathe with ease. There are any number of reasons to move that are less about beating your best and more about being your best however that looks today.