I
see a lot of negativity lately on boards towards other members, their progress posts, goals, their training method (crossfit, ss, etc.) or whatever and it got me
thinking. I've been
doing this for about 16 years at this point, and in the entire time I've
been working out I have only seen two ways to feel better about
yourself. This goes for lifting, athletics, finances, regular life,
anything really.
The first way is to better yourself, advance yourself, improve
yourself in some way, or otherwise get yourself closer to some goal.
When you do this you don't really worry about what those around you are
doing as much, because you know you're improving yourself, and that's
what matters. You are driven because you know that you are responsible for getting yourself further along in life, and are working at bettering yourself.
The second way is try and tear down those around you, and their
accomplishments. Whether with words or actions, this only makes you feel
better because when you compare yourself to those around you, their
achievements have been lowered, at least in your own mind. This mindset
engenders constant comparison to those around you, a lack of
self-motivation, and the need to constantly strain for ways to
delegitimize the accomplishments of those around you. It's exhausting, at the end of the day it does nothing real to advance yourself.
So just a reminder: If you find yourself tearing down the
achievements of others in the gym, or making up excuses, or dumping on
people here just trying to improve themselves; are you doing it because
you truly feel criticism is warranted, or are you falling into that
second method of feeling better about yourself.
