It’s You vs. You: You are your only competition
How many times in your life, or even just a single day have you just felt like everything is stacking up against you? Maybe you spilled your coffee on the way to work. Maybe your kid kept you up all night. Maybe you can’t lose those pesky pounds around your midsection. Whatever we struggle through in life feels like, more often than not, it is happening TO us rather just another happenstance. The truth of the matter is that everything we go through in life is not about what IS happening or what HAS happened but about how we react and how it changes us. We can let things change us for the better or for the worst. I personally would like to choose the former, wouldn’t you? Afterall, what is life if we are not constantly striving to be the best selves we can be? Why would we want to make things worse on purpose?
The older I get the more I see and come to realize that life is not fairytales and rainbows. Life is hard. Life is relentless. But life can bring so much joy still if we allow it. Everything that happens in our lives affects us in some way. When we are kids, we are taught to dream big and not let life stand in our way. While this is still good advice, it isn’t the full picture. I’m going to take a moment to paint in broad strokes here; I understand that everyone is raised a little differently and has vastly different childhood experiences, just bear with me for a second. As a child, our lives are relatively simple. We do what we are told, be where we are supposed to be, eat what we are supposed to eat, go to school, go to practice, do our homework…. You get the gist. Children don’t have to worry about what hand life is dealing them, they just react and go with the flow, and rightfully so. They are not ready to take on that burden. Their job, in many different ways, is to develop, to grow. Its not until we get older and more responsible and independent that we really start to see the struggles in life. This too is when a lot of us start to feel attacked or overwhelmed. We are constantly fighting an uphill battle and to some of us it seems that we are on the loosing end of that battle. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. This is a natural feeling for most of us regardless of stage or level in life. All the financial burden we face, all the stress, all the worry, all the back and forth, all the grind, all the hard work, all the pressure to provide, all of it boils down to one single fight: OURSELVES. That’s right, we aren’t fighting our job, our houses, our cars, our weight, our family, our debt and so on. What we are fighting is simply who we are now, versus who we want to be, period. If you want to be a successful businessman/woman, fight for it and make it happen. If you want to be the best stay-at-home parent, do it. Just know that nothing will stand in your way except you. Fight and fight and fight for who it is you want to be. Let’s be frank for a second, maybe you don’t ever get to where you wanted to be, but as long as you are taking steps to be the person you want to be, you will never lose. For example, I always wanted to be a professional football player. Stemming from childhood fantasy and growing to collegiate accomplishments, that dream never came to fruition for me. It wasn’t because lack of effort, or lack of attitude, life just had a different path for me, and I couldn’t be happier. We all face crossroads in our life and we all choose our certain path. Sometimes that’s the path we wanted and other times it’s the path we didn’t, but it is always the path we were meant to take. Call it faith, call it belief in a higher power, call it realism, or just call it hippie nonsense, the fact is we were all put on this earth to do something. We all have a purpose. But life is not just going to hand us our purpose. We must fight every day to become that purpose. A great inspirational philosopher, Bruce Lee, once said, “Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” Wow, just think about that for a second. It is not about saying your life is easy, it’s about saying that you survived the struggles and made it your own. When you get to the end and watch how your life unfolded, make sure it is worth watching.
If being a competitive athlete for almost two decades and then a coach/trainer for one has taught me any one lesson it is: don’t expect anything, work for everything. 99.9% of the time life will not hand you lemonade, you must make it yourself; sometimes even, life won’t give you lemons at all! Now you might be asking yourself, how in the heck can I make lemonade without even having lemons?? Here’s the secret, everyone’s lemonade is different. There isn’t one recipe for lemonade. You must make the best form of lemonade you can with the ingredients you have. The recipe will be altered and the final product is always changing. Your lemonade last year is not the same drink as this year. Heck, your lemonade from yesterday isn’t even the same as today. We are always in motion, our lives are always changing, we are always fighting and competing. We never stay in the same place. Now the question is, will we move forward or will we move backwards? Will the you of today be better or worse than the you of tomorrow? The fight is constant. Everything from big milestones in life to the pursuit of dreams all the way down to the most miniscule day-to-day has an impact on us. In sports, we are taught to not underestimate the opponent, to train hard, train smart, and train for the unexpected. So why do we not do the same thing for ourselves? Afterall, we are our only competition, right? We are the only person that will stand in our way of happiness and success. Don’t be the one that beats you, rather keep training, keep fighting, and keep competing to be better than you were before. Don’t put titles on accomplishments, don’t listen to what other people think or say you should be, and most certainly never give up! Take the experiences of life and use them as stepping stones to be the best version of yourself. Seize your day and make the best of every opportunity. Never give up. Never surrender.
Life is hard, but the journey is simple: keep fighting. It’s You vs. You. Be the victor.
Written by: Robby Buckreis, M.S., B.S., CPT.
