Why You Should Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

World-renowned ultra marathon runner Alice Hector wants to tell you why comparing yourself to others simply doesn’t add up and you can find more motivation from within. We suggest you take note.

As a sportsperson, one of the worst things we can do is compare our progress and results to those of others. You may feel quite pleased with your 45-minute gym  session – until you go on Facebook and see your friend has run a 100km ultra marathon while grinning from ear to ear. And due to a tweet you saw, you’re now feeling flabby because your friend posted her avocado and quinoa smoothie – and you’ve been on the cookies.

Social media lies

Thanks to the power of social media, and the constant drip feed of everyone’s best bits, it’s difficult to not compare yourself to others and feel just a little bit inadequate.

Let’s keep it real. If you’ve ever had a photo taken at a sporting event, I’ll bet you’ve had to sift through a barrage of awful ones before sharing one that looks pretty decent. Especially when running. Running photos suck. When you strike the ground at the hardest point, even for the perkiest of ladies, everything sags. But we won’t be showing those to the world.

Gym selfie? Most of the time I go to the gym in an old T-shirt and baggy shorts, looking somewhat bedraggled. That won’t be going on any timeline. On occasion, though, I do put on my brightest and tightest and post up a picture. But it’s not the norm. Appearance comparisons are one thing but we also need to be wary when it comes to performance. Join a group of like-minded people and, naturally, there’ll be people who are better at certain things than you. It’s great to have people to aspire to, but their ability shouldn’t make you feel bad about yours. Often, in secret, they’ll be wishing they had what you have in some other area.

It’s all about you vs. you

Think about who it is you’re doing this for. Your real competition is with yourself. If you better yourself, you’ll continue to rise, and people will admire you without you even realizing.

Even just sticking with comparing yourself to you comes with a couple of clauses. You can’t always compare your past results with present ones. Take running as an example. It’s great to push yourself and you should always be working towards improvement, but there are a lot of factors to take into consideration.

Have you put the work in? Are the courses comparable? When did you set your personal record?

Coming back from an injury, I know I can’t run as fast as I was when I had an uninterrupted few months of training. With this in mind, I am okay with my better race times not coming until later in the year. Comparisons can be beneficial if approached with the right frame of mind. However, if the comparisons you’re making make you feel worse about yourself, then it’s time to reconsider the following:

• Are the comparisons you’re making realistic? Can you really expect to run as fast as a pro and have the abs of a photoshopped model?

• Are you being honest with your expectations? Don’t expect to set a PB if you didn’t put in the work.

• Unless you can replicate conditions exactly, it’s difficult to compare courses or past results.

We’re all responsible for our own happiness, and that’s more easily obtained when we focus on how we feel, rather than comparing ourselves to others. Enjoy the experience of being active and feeling fit over and above results, times or reps. Enjoy what you do and results will happen naturally.

Find fitness advice and more in every issue of TRAIN for HER magazine.