Edging Out Your Competition

I'm thinking of a person. Well, a sort of person. You know this person. In fact, I'll bet you know quite a few of them. You may even have seen them today. Not in person, of course... that would be too risky.
But you did see (coughstalkcough) them on facebook.

"Who is this person??" you may ask. "How do you know about them? How did you know I look at (coughobsessovercough) their facebook photos?"

Oh, my child. I know. I know, because I know this person too. And I make the same mistake you do.

This person is the perfect person. They have a perfect face. They have a perfect body. They have perfectly cool pictures. They have a perfect balance of work and fun. They have a perfect life.

You compare yourself to them. And, without fail, you come up short.

Come on guys, I can't be the only person who does this. At first, it's innocent, just scanning the facebook feed. Then you see something, and go to a profile. You start clicking through pictures.
And the next thing you know, it's 30 minutes later, you have determined without a doubt that this person has the perfect (insert face, body, job, anything really), and that not only do you not have said perfect thing, but you never will, and whereas 30 minutes ago you were a perfectly normal and adequate human being, you are now an unworthy, inferior cockroach.

Ok, maybe it's not that dramatic. But you know what I mean.

Psychologists have a term for this phenomenon. They call it "shitty comparison shopping".
Ok, maybe they don't call it that. But you know what I mean. And it DOES happen. All the time.

To get all personal with this issue, I've recently started a new kind of workout with my trainer called CrossFit. Basically, you do 5 different exercises for 60 seconds each, doing as many reps as you can. You keep counting through all 5 exercises, and at the end you write your number down. You do this 3 times, and then try to up your number from session to session.
Sounds simple enough? Yeah, it sounds simple. To put it mildly, for someone who hates cardio and the gym in general, it's a fucking nightmare.
I know it's a good workout, and I know it will help my endurance and all that, but it's still a rough 15 minutes, and the only thing keeping me from ripping off the scrotum of anyone near me is my awesome trainer, who knows just when to encourage, give tough love, or tell a cheesy joke.

My number shot up since last week, so of course I should be proud of the work I'm doing. And I was even starting to feel sort of good about it... until the dreaded facebook shitty comparison shopping trap.

I've really been trying to improve myself lately, mostly having to do with my physical health. I don't feel good when I go to the gym; in fact it makes me angry and upset. Very often (most recently 2 nights ago) when I push myself hard, I start crying.
Yep. Fucking crying. Like a little girl.
But I go anyway. I don't get the endorphins, but I go anyway. And I've seen major changes in m body. Not to boast, but a lot of other people have too.

Every woman has a different body type. Mine is generally lean with curves, mostly on the lower half. Yes, I'm happy with it. I don't want to look like a stick, I like feeling feminine and my butt-aciousness is usually a big part of that.

But when you fall into the SCS trap, you will always find another person with a smaller waist, or bigger boobs, or nicer hair, or prettier eyes, or better skin, or or or or or...
(this can continue for a while)
And suddenly it doesn't matter that you looked in the mirror 5 minutes ago and were happy with what you saw. You feel like shit.

So, what have we learned here?

Comparing yourself to others is not a path to happiness. Some use it as motivation, I suppose, but it seems quite a lofty and unrealistic goal to become someone else.
Spoiler alert: It's never gonna happen.
If you're trying to get better, compare yourself to... yourself. When I noticed myself getting caught up in SCS, I looked at a picture on my camera taken about a year and a half ago:


This is me at around 160-165 lbs. Yes, I know it's a far cry from obesity, but I was not happy with it.

Now, having that picture in my head of... let's call her Past Rachel, I can now look at myself in the mirror and think "Damn. I kicked that girl's ass! I'm so much better looking than her!"


Better lighting and photo quality nonwithstanding, this is me clocking it at about 140 lbs.

I'd say Present Rachel wins this battle.

I'm making an effort to remind myself that the only person I should be comparing myself to is the me of yesterday. And if the me of today isn't winning, get up and do something about it.

You can only be the best version of YOU. Deep down, don't you want it that way?