In an attempt to be real but not come off sounding totally arrogant, most things come pretty easily to me. Usually when I attempt to explain this, I get the tongue-in-cheek response of "Oh, I'm Lindsay, I'm just good at everything." That's not what I'm saying - all I am saying is that most activities that I attempt just seem to come pretty easily, from athletic endeavors to academic endeavors - - with the exception of basketball. I am terrible at basketball.
That being said, whenever I pick up something new, I have no interest in comparing myself to the best in the game, I have every interest in comparing myself to my Day 1 experience of that activity. Even while looking at other people, I don't look at a girl in the gym and say "I want to crush her," nor do I look at highly successful women at work and think "I want to be better respected, smarter, and higher than her." I generally look at it as a mentor/mentee relationship, or as someone to look up to and attempt to achieve as much as them... but with no intention of trying to "compete" with them. I want to be as good as I am capable of being, regardless of the arena. But my ability level is not necessarily correlated to someone else's ability level - and I understand that and appreciate it. Take what I have, mold it, work at it, think about it, strategize, set goals, and get to the next level - the next level FOR ME.
I don't get amped up for a workout by walking in, seeing one of my friends, and thinking "today I'm going to out-rep, out-run, and out-lift her." My workouts are good when I feel like I may throw up, when I am unable to get another rep due to fatigue, or when I set a new PR. I'm disappointed when I feel like maybe I could have pushed myself harder, or that it wasn't "enough" to make me feel like I'd left it all out there on the floor.
However, when I get thrown in with the rest of the human population, many of whom are extremely competitive, they don't understand where I am coming from, and more often than not, I become extremely frustrated with my perception of their competitiveness.I have opted not to compete, recently. I just don't have the fire, and I really have no desire to square off against other people who just so happen to participate in the same activities as I do. It makes it not-so-fun for me. But let's get this straight: I am not happy with being mediocre. I am not happy with plateaus or stagnation. None of that is acceptable - it is not acceptable to be lazy, to be unmotivated, to be content with "good enough." But my competition is not standing next to me at a pull up rig, nor sitting at the desk next to me. My competition is staring at me in the mirror every day. Am I better than I was yesterday? If the answer is no, I will consider my day a waste, and plot my next few moves to ensure that doesn't happen again.
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