Part 4 of the Unlearning Perfection series, a short blog series exploring where I first learned about perfection, my 10+ years of gymnastics, and the lessons I’m unlearning now.
Unsplash | David Hofmann
In gymnastics, it was very clear where you stood.
There was you, your performance score, and where you placed.
You were first, second, third, or maybe even last.
And that place was everything. It was the first thing you were asked after a competition.
It was how you compared to the rest of the girls in the competition. It was how you compared to even your own teammates. It was how you were compared to perfection.
The idea of comparison was locked in our brains. It almost became an unhealthy form of competition sometimes.
On one side, you wanted the other girls to fall and look bad just so you could look better.
On the other side, if someone did better than you, your self confidence was out the window.
In gymnastics, we put so much self worth in being better than the next girl.
This ended up spilling over into my life outside the gym.
Growing up, I remember constantly comparing myself to other girls. Was I prettier than them? Was I better at sports? Did I have more friends? Was I more mature than them?
While competition may have served me as a motivator in gymnastics, the constant comparison now can tear us down.
We compare who is doing the best at life based on if they're married, have kids, and/or has a good job.
We compare who looks like they're in the best shape when we see people for the first time in awhile.
We compare who looks like they're living the best life according to social media.
We keep comparing. And for what? Does it bring us self-fulfillment to be better than the next person or them be better than us?
I don't know about you, but I haven't seen a "doing best at life" ranking come out lately.
I think the comparison is driven from the need to be perfect. We feel that if we have a leg up on someone else than that makes us more perfect than them, better than them.
But no matter where you look, there is always going to be someone more perfect than you and less perfect than you.
So how do you know who wins?
The way to win is win for yourself. If you're in competition with yourself, you can't lose. If you're in competition with yourself, you will always be worthy. If you're in competition with yourself, it becomes about doing your best and your best is enough.
So I'm unlearning to compete with others, so I can learn how to compete with myself.
Here are some questions I'm using to help me do that:
What does my self worth depend on?
Sometimes we rely on someone else's metrics to evaluate how we are doing at life: how much money we have, if we have a significant other, or how nice our car is. What really matters to you? What metrics are a real identifier of your happiness? Maybe it’s how much effort you put towards going after your dreams or taking care of your health.
How can we stop looking at it as worse or better and look at it as a different?
A way we can get away from seeing us or others as worse or better is looking at all of us as different. We all have different experiences and backgrounds, and that creates our different versions of what our best looks like. If we are all doing our best, than what is there to compare?
What does being my best look and feel like?
This is so important so you can go after what you want and live a fulfilling life. For me, being my best looks like putting forth the effort I know I am capable of, plus a little bit more to push myself to grow. It looks like striving for the things that are important to me. It feels like going to bed at the end of the day knowing you did everything you could to be your best self and make the world a better place. What does it mean to you?
What would make me proud?
What do you want your life to look life, taking comparison out of it? How do you want to design this one life you have? At the end of the day when it’s just you, what would make you proud of yourself?
In Don Miguel Ruiz's book, The Four Agreements, he says…
"If you do your best in the search for personal freedom, in the search for self-love, you will discover that it’s just a matter of time before you find what you are looking for."
I think what we are looking for is to be happy. I think for me to be happy, I need to unlearn to compete with others so I can learn to compete with myself, and know that my best is enough.