For most of my life, I knew exactly where I stood. In elite sports, comparison isn’t just unavoidable, it’s built into the system. Every routine receives a score. Every score has a placement. And every placement tells you exactly where you stand.
Add to that a genuine love for the sport, an undeniable desire to be your best, and the belief that if you work hard enough, sacrifice enough, and want it badly enough, maybe just maybe, one day you’ll be your best… which then naturally you hope, wish, and pray it’s also enough to be the best.
And by the way, that’s not the problem whatsoever. That’s just what we call being a professional athlete. We know what we signed up.
The problem is when the competition ends, but you never stop competing. You carry that mindset into every corner of your life.
Careers. Relationships. Homes. Followers. Outfits. Bodies. Bank accounts. Milestones. The list can go on and on.
You look around and try to figure out where you rank. And to be fair, comparison isn’t always something we create ourselves. Sometimes it’s built into the environment.
For example, there are moments that feel surprisingly familiar. A partnership opportunity comes down to a handful of people. Engagement gets compared. Analytics get compared. ROI gets compared. Suddenly there’s a scoreboard all over again.
The difference is that I’ve learned a score can be useful information without becoming my identity. Metrics can measure performance. They cannot measure worth. One is data. The other is something no number will ever be able to capture.
And if you’re not careful, you can spend your entire life chasing someone else’s version of success before ever asking yourself what success actually means or looks like to you.
What I’ve learned is that confidence has very little to do with being better than anyone else. Real confidence comes from becoming more fully yourself. Because, hate to break it to you, but here’s a little truth we all must accept:
There will always be someone prettier.
Someone smarter.
Someone funnier.
Someone younger.
Someone with better engagement rates.
Someone who seems further ahead (in any or all aspects of life)
And if your confidence depends on being the best in every room, you’ll spend your life exhausted from a race that never actually ends. (And from a non-runner over here, the thought of that alone sounds miserable.)
So how do we fix that?
For me, I think the shift happened when I stopped asking: “How do I measure up to them?” And started asking: “Am I becoming the person I’m capable of being?”
Those are completely different questions. One is rooted in scarcity. The other is rooted in possibility.
The truth is, there is only one thing in this world that nobody else can beat you at: BEING YOU.
No one else has your exact perspective. Your experiences. Your gifts. Your story. Your voice. Your smile. Your heart. Your way of making people feel.
And the funny thing is that most people spend years trying to become someone else, while the thing that makes them most valuable is the one thing they’re actively trying to hide.
In my opinion, confidence isn’t walking into a room believing you’re better than everyone there.
It’s walking into a room knowing you don’t need to be.
It’s knowing your worth simply isn’t up for comparison.
It’s understanding that your job isn’t to outshine someone else’s light.
It’s to fully use your own.
The older I get, the less interested I am in winning comparisons of any sort. (I know some of you are probably laughing reading that.) But it’s the honest truth. People are often shocked to find out how uncompetitive I am in this chapter of life.
Not because I stopped caring. But because, for me, being competitive served a time, place, and purpose. It taught me discipline. It taught me resilience. It pushed me toward personal excellence. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.
But these days, I’m less interested in being better than someone else and more interested in becoming the version of myself I know I can be and was meant to be.
Because if there’s anything worth fearing, it’s not that someone else is ahead of you. It’s never becoming who you’re capable of being.
After all, there may be people who do what you do better. But there will never be another person who can do it exactly the way you can.
And that’s the game worth playing.
Or, if you’re still in your competitive era…winning.
XX NL
NASTIA’S NOTES:
• The competition isn’t the problem. The problem is when the competition ends, but you never stop competing.
• Someone will always be prettier, smarter, younger, or further ahead. That’s not pessimistic, promise. It’s simply freeing.
• Define success for yourself before the world does it for you.
• Your worth isn’t up for comparison…. THE END 🙂
