Do you know your real competition?

As a human race, we thrive on competition. This holds true to everything we do, be it in our personal lives or professional lives. However, sometimes when on our weight loss journey, we find the wrong competition to fuel ourselves with. What do I mean by this you ask?

Often times when working out or starting to workout, we decide our competition is the person on the treadmill or weight bench next to us. We see what they can do, or how long they go, and we decide we are going to beat them. Sure, some people find this motivating, but there is a serious flaw to this logic. You can always be better than someone. Let's say the person you chose to beat today is just there for a mild workout. Let's say this person is just wanting to do a 30 minute job on the treadmill, you hop on when they do, you glance and their speed and increase yours by just enough to be faster. They hop off after their 30 minutes and you go to 35 minutes. But where is the competition? It's not there, you beat someone who wasn't there to compete. Or maybe let's say you pick someone who looks like they can lift a lot of heavy weights. Well what if they can't, maybe they are just starting to lift and have no real experience, there is no competition there. You are only half way satisfying a need. Sure you think you are fully satisfying it, but you aren't.

So who is your competition? You are your own competition. Yes, I said it. Your main obstacle is you. You can never do better than yourself. This is something I knew from the beginning of my weight loss journey and my journey to a healthier lifestyle. I set daily and weekly goals, as I met those goals, I increased them as well. My first day on the elliptical was to just survive, I barely made it 15 minutes, each day I did the elliptical, I made a goal to go one minute longer. I didn't care what my speed was, I wanted to sustain on the machine. When I made it to 30 minutes, I started working on distance to complete in 30 minutes and so on.

Now in my daily workouts at home, I push to make it farther in my workouts without nearly dying. I will never be satisfied with what I do in my workouts, and no one really should be if they are competitive with themselves. Sure I have days that I tell myself that I am going to take it easy, but I still go strong to compete with me. You are your biggest competition, you can never be better than yourself. Remember that next time you are working out or decide to take on a fitness journey.