At the end of December, I hit a deadlift PR of 220 pounds. A month later, I couldn’t lift 205.
Does that mean I lost strength?
Was it just an off-day?
Was my strength impacted by other things I had going on?
Maybe the 220 was a fluke and I’ll never be able to repeat it.
Whether in the gym or in other parts of life, it’s natural for us to get caught in the trap of comparing ourselves to other people and judging ourselves for being deficient when we don’t measure up.
The common advice in this situation is to remind us that we are competing against ourselves. Well-meaning people advise you to compare yourself only to yourself — the previous version of you.
Aim to be just 1 percent better every day.
This, too, is a trap.
Progress is not linear.
A man never crosses the same river twice. For he is not the same man and the river is not the same river.
We wake up each day in a different body.
Different life events impact us differently from day to day.
The energy of every moment is different.
An airplane doesn’t fly in a liner path. A ship will meander off course en route to its destination.
Eventually, both arrive at their target destinations, but they do not get there in a straight line.
While it’s nice to aim to be “1 percent better” each day, in practice it’s hard to know what “1 percent better” even looks like.
The truth is that “progress” often looks like we’re going backward.
Life is a spiral. It takes us back to the same places repeatedly. Sometimes it might feel like that’s going “backward” but on closer inspection it might actually be an opportunity to refine and approach, a mindset, a technique.
That “1 percent” improvement might not be in a measurable area.
Instead of trying to compete with or compare yourself to a prior version of yourself, aim to meet yourself where you are, with compassion and self-love.
You might find that you’ll go farther, faster, without the self-judgment about your perceived progress.
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