I’m sure you’ve all heard that quote before? But it really is true, and it’s something I’ve struggled with at times too!
This is especially common in fitness! In a world of social media, where everyone is posting their highlights and getting their best angles and posting their best lifts! It’s easy to look at that person in envy and feel bad about ourselves.
It’s important to keep context, and to focus on yourself. Sure, it’s good to have role models and people you’d like to be a bit more like, but the key thing is making sure that YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOU WERE YESTERDAY!
If you’re looking to get leaner, then focus on what you can control. Good sleep, sensible (most of the time) nutrition, and good consistency with your training. There’s no point comparing yourself to an elite bodybuilder, who may look great on stage, but is eating chicken and brocolli all day every day and potentially sacrificing their social, family, and working life to achieve that goal. Although you might look at them in envy, they may well look at you in envy too, when they see that you love your training, eat out occasionally with friends, and have a good job!
The point here isn’t to bash bodybuilders at all, but it’s important to look at the context! You might be envous of the guy in the ferrari, but he might hate his job, have health issues, be suffering with stress and anxiety, and be one bad deal away from bankruptcy!
With your training and nutrition, are you better than you were a month ago? What progress have you made over the last year? Are you enjoying your training and feeling better? These are the only comparisons you should be making. I’m guilty sometimes for looking into the future too much and setting goals, but sometimes it’s actually good to look backwards too, so you get a nice balance of ambition and drive for the future, but also perspective and a realisation of how far you’ve come.
Cheers,
Mark.