The Comparison Trap

Constantly comparing ourselves to others.

We’re all caught up in it.

We’re always thinking about other people.

How do we match up with them?

How do we compare?

Are we more successful than them?

Are we doing better than them?

We all do it.

Whether consciously or unconsciously.

For many of us, it’s constant.

Keeping up with the Joneses.

Making sure we’re keeping up and outdoing those around us.

Read a Reddit post a few years back about this.

There was a family who was worth more than 50 million dollars.

All their kids were through school.

Paid off their house.

Had a great life.

Everything looked great from the outside.

Yet they were miserable?

Why?

Because they lived in a neighbourhood where all their friends were worth 100 million dollars or more.

So instead of being happy with what they had, they kept looking to what was ahead of them.

That’s a dangerous trap we all fall into.

Thinking we’re not enough just because someone is doing better than us.

Constantly comparing ourselves up.

Rather than considering where we are.

How far we’ve come.

How much we’ve accomplished on this journey to get here.

We’re all running our own race.

Have been since the day you were born.

Life is a single-player journey.

It’s you against you.

Yet because we’re social creatures, we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others.

It can provide motivation to work harder.

But it can also be a never-ending road to misery if you get caught up in it.

I’ve been feeling this during training.

Prior to starting my Ironman journey, I wasn’t doing any of the 3 sports.

Stopped running entirely after I ran the marathon in 2023.

Hadn’t swam since I was a kid doing lifeguard training.

Only been on a bike a few times as an adult with the max distance I’ve ever gone being 10 km.

All of these sports were relatively new to me.

Yet when I started training at the beginning of the year and tracking my workouts with my Garmin, I was always looking at my times.

How fast was I?

How far did I go?

Then I’d open Strava and scroll through.

Have a bunch of friends/colleagues I’ve followed over the years who have been doing some of these sports for a long time.

Sometimes decades.

Running 5 min/km over a half marathon distance.

Swimming under 2 min/100m.

Biking over 100k

I’m nowhere close to there.

Yet I found myself in this trap.

Comparing myself to them.

Thinking I wasn’t good enough.

That I wasn’t doing enough.

That I was behind.

All of these are lies.

The subconscious reaction to how we’ve all been raised.

Comparing ourselves to others, especially those ahead of us.

Here’s a secret.

‘Comparison is the thief of happiness.’

You can never be truly happy comparing yourself to others.

You will always fall short.

There will always be someone ahead of you.

Someone smarter, taller, better looking, more successful.

All of it.

But they aren’t you.

You are.

Instead, compare yourself to where you were before.

Who you were yesterday.

Are you moving ahead?

Are you making progress?

Do you feel better than who you were yesterday?

Or last month?

Or last year?

If the answer is yes, then amazing!!

Keep going.

The only comparison you should ever make is to your previous self.

If you’re doing better than you were before, then you’re on the right track.

It was what I kept telling myself this whole month.

Are you making progress?

Clearly I am.

Biggest improvement has been in the pool where I was at 2 min 37 seconds/100m at the start of Jan.

Just did my time trial on Friday and got to ~1:50/100m over 400m.

All in a month.

Sure I’m not as fast as some of the other people I’ve seen.

But I don’t need to be.

I only need to be faster than who I was yesterday.

So stop comparing yourself to others.

Start focusing on the progress you’re making.

You do that and you’re golden.

This week in training - 1st rest week (Follow me on Strava here):

Swimming - 4500 m - 1 x 2500m, 1 x 2000m. Did my first time trial and got to 7:32 for 400m. Feeling good about the swim.

Biking - 63.6 km - good biking sessions, especially the aerobic long bike. Not as many as it was a rest week but still good progress. Power slowly improving.

Running - 13.9 km - lighter run week and happy with that. Had achilles soreness and calf tightness after the long run last week so was glad I got the rest week. Even my coach wasn’t surprised I had something come up so just need to keep monitoring it. Did my 5k time trial and up to 6.5 mph on the treadmill over the 5k so happy with that.

Notes from Week 4 of training:

• Good rest week and glad I got to it. Know the workouts ramp up even more as we go into Feb.
• Food has been decent this week, now into a routine. Making similar meals but find them tasty and getting used to the carb mix on the bike.
• Good improvements in the pool. Went from 2:37/100 m at the start of the month to 1:53/100m this week during my 400m time trial. Felt much faster and know there’s still improvements to be made.
• Bike is going better. Pushed the cadence up to in the 60s and good long aerobic ride Saturday pushing around 140 watts consistently over 90 minutes. Still making improvements.
• Slow run week which was good. Much needed. Bit of achilles soreness after the last long run so glad it wasn’t a heavy week.
• Finished Night Agent (season 2 was not as good). Up to speed with Severance. Started Prison Break season 2 and added Designated Survivor to the list. Lots more to come.
• First month in the books. Hard to believe. Only 6 months left. Good first rest week with a few time trials and liking the progress. Key is to stay in zone 2 and don’t overdo it at this stage, but aerobic capacity is definitely improving.

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