Nothing Changes Until You Do: A Guide to Self-Compassion and Getting Out of Your Own Way by Mike Robbins Read Free Book Online

our sense of peace, fulfillment, and joy in life. This is a negative ego trap—and there are no true winners in this game. As Mark Twain said, “Comparison is the death of joy.”
    Growing up as a competitive athlete, I got lots of early experience and training about how to compete against others and try to beat them. This wasn’t just about the other team; often the biggest and most intense competition was with my friends and fellow teammates.
    On our baseball team at Stanford, there were almost 40 players on the total roster, 18 of whom were pitchers like me. When we’d travel to play games against other teams in our conference, only 22 guys were allowed to go on the trip and be on the active roster. Eight of these guys were pitchers. During a weekend three-game series, there were three starting pitchers, and usually only two or three of the relief pitchers would get a chance to pitch, depending on how the games unfolded. This meant that about half of the team and more than half of all the pitchers didn’t even get to make the trip, let alone get a chance to play in the games. Needless to say, it created a pretty stressful and internally competitive environment. Some of my teammates were very close friends of mine whom I cared a lot about. Yet, at the same time, we were competing for a limited number of spots—like a cruel and very public game of musical chairs that we all wanted to win.
    Whether it was in baseball, school, or other areas of life, I often found myself directly or indirectly competing in a pretty intense way with those around me when I was younger.
    Although I’ve worked through and outgrown certain aspects of my intense competitive and comparative tendencies (and it’s been more than 15 years since I played baseball competitively), I still find myself threatened by the success of others, at times—as if we’re competing against one another for a limited number of “spots” or as if their success takes something away from me, which, in just about every case, it doesn’t.
    It’s important to understand, however, that there is both negative and positive competition. Negative competition, which most of us are more familiar with, is based on two limiting and negative notions: First is the black-and-white idea of “us against them”—when we win, we’re good, and when we lose, we’re bad. Second is the stressful and damaging concept of scarcity—that there’s a finite amount of success to go around, and if someone else succeeds, it takes away from us. Based on these notions, the goal is to beat anyone and everyone around us or, at the very least, avoid losing, and get as much as we can before someone else does. Sadly, this type of negative competition is everywhere in our culture and has been ingrained in how we operate in life, business, and even personal relationships. We have to be mindful of our own tendencies, and of our cultural programming, so as not to fall into this negative trap.
    Positive competition, on the other hand, is about challenging ourselves, pushing our limits, and allowing the talent, skill, and support of others to help take us to the next level. When we compete in this conscious way, it’s beautiful, important, and healthy—and has nothing to do with our true value as human beings. In other words, we aren’t better or worse based on how we perform.
    A simple example of this is with physical exercise. When we work out with another person, or with a group of people, we usually get more out of it. Why is this? Because we’re challenged and held accountable, which forces us to show up, go beyond our perceived limits, and not quit (even if we want to). The competitive aspect of this remains positive and healthy as long as we simply allow ourselves to be pushed without looking for a particular outcome. It can turn negative if we allow our egos to take over and place value on who lifts more weight, who runs faster, or who “wins.”
    Of course, there are times in life and