Everyone Around Me is Better than I Am

A couple weeks ago I managed to successfully climb the hardest route I’ve ever completed without falling since I started rock climbing. It’s rated 5.11b, and I spent four different days over a two-month period practicing it before I finally succeeded. During that time, I went to the gym several days each week to train specific fitness aspects needed to accomplish this route. I also ran 3-4 days per week to lose weight and make the job of climbing this strenuous overhanging route easier on my muscles.

As I celebrated my accomplishment, a group of climbers arrived and took their turn. It was their first day here and they were “just looking for some easy warm ups before moving to the hard climbs.” Every one of them got it on their first try and then proceeded to climb the even more difficult routes next door without a struggle.

I’m surrounded!

I’ve been surrounded by people who are better than I am my entire life. When I was into baseball (the Sandlot had just come out) the neighbor kids could throw farther, hit harder, and run faster. When we switched to inline skating, they picked up the tricks and did bigger ramps than I could at the skate park. In school, there was always someone with a more creative project, neater handwriting (that used to matter), or better grades. Someone else was first-chair in band. Someone else got selected to be squad leader, drum major, and team captain.

In college, people around me got scholarships out of thin air. I got loans. They landed internships at big famous organizations after their first year. I took summer school to make up for being behind in my classes. Their undergraduate research got showcased in major conferences and journals. While I was working my tail off just to survive, other people in class were out having fun and getting all A’s without even trying. They understood the material, I scraped by thanks to carefully-constructed formula sheets for each exam.

Three Important Notes About Comparing Yourself to Others

Comparing ourselves to those around us seems to be a basic human behavior. When we’re confronted with a situation that isn’t the way we want it, our egos kick in to protect us. The ego has done its job if it can find a subtle way to convince us that our circumstances are to blame, rather than ourselves. Keep these thoughts in mind:

1. No one built what they have in a day. If you ever look at a person’s “list” – all of those things they seem to be winning at that you aren’t – be careful not to overlook what they went through to get it. No one woke up ready to publish articles about “Frameworks for Test-to-Test Averaging and Representation of Asynchronous Spatial Measurements.” They worked at that concept for years, trying many ideas that fell flat and building on each failure. We don’t start out amazing at anything worth doing – we push our capability a little further each day and grow over time.
2. There is no such thing as “the best.”  Name any field, and you’ll be able to find stiff competition to decide who is at the top. I’ll avoid specific professions here because I don’t want to pigeon-hole this post. Instead, I’ll consider some famous rock climbers as an analogy. Last year, Alex Honnold climbed the unimaginably large cliff in Yosemite called El Capitan, without a rope or any safety gear. Meanwhile, Tommy Caldwell became the first person ever to climb a much more difficult route around the corner (literally considered the hardest route in the world) – he spent years with his partner swinging around on ropes thousands of feet up the wall looking for a path, adding bolts where protection was needed. Shortly after Caldwell’s success, Adam Ondra arrived and climbed the route in a matter of days. Who’s the best? Someone so confident and in control that they don’t need safety gear? Someone who puts up the hardest route in the world for the first time, blazing a new path where no one else could see the way? Or the one who can repeat that route with far less practice? The answer is “none” of them – they each have strengths and weaknesses. The same is true for all of us.
3. If there is no such thing as “the best,” then there is no such thing as “better.” Whether it’s athletics, relationships, academics, or careers – we love to compare ourselves and decide who is better or worse than us. These comparisons are flat – we pick specific aspects of performance to focus on and ignore others to construct a narrative that serves our purpose. Sometimes we want to feel better about ourselves and we look for places to say “at least I’m not as bad as that person.” Other times our egos are being more subtle and seek out people we wish we could be.

Circumstances Matter

There is no doubt that circumstances affect our outcomes. I’ll stay away from specific stories of privilege, as that is best saved as a topic for another post.  For now I’ll just say that when we’re engaging in the energy-draining act of comparing ourselves to others, our egos try to protect us by blaming circumstances. We tell ourselves that if we had everything going for us that they do, we’d be successful too. That separates us from our performance – circumstances are out of our control and so it’s not our fault that someone is better than us.

Conclusion

Comparing yourself to others is a great way to cut yourself short. You aren’t growing while you’re nurturing your fragile ego by finding people you’re better than, or worse than. Spin this narrative long enough and you’ll give yourself the superpower of finding a reason that nothing is your fault – which also leaves you with the unspoken conclusion that nothing is your accomplishment either. Blame your circumstances if you like, or take power by figuring out how to respond to them. The choice is yours.

There are over 7 billion people on this planet. Pick any measurable trait or skill and you can guarantee that you’re not the best. Even if you take a more wholistic view of performance that incorporates many skills, you’ll still be hard-pressed to find the best. There’s always someone out there that we haven’t discovered yet who will push things to the next level.

I have a mantra that I repeat over and over again when I catch my ego playing comparison games:

“If you’re the best in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”

This simple statement reminds me that

1. I’ll never be the best, because it doesn’t exist.
2. Growth is the true accomplishment, not some artificial notion of absolute performance.
3. A great way to grow is to surround yourself with people worth emulating.

If you’re ready to take a small but significant step in reclaiming some power in your life, do this: Pick a public platform to share a story about a time you compared yourself to others. Share the story, and add a link to this post to give people a chance to understand what you’re doing. Tag me and I’ll be sure to respond!