More than a decade ago, I went go-karting with a few colleagues as part of a work event.
We did two rounds of racing. At the end of the first round, we had a clear winner.
We all had another go at improving our times in the second round. Again, the same colleague won.
As we sat down after the races, this colleague asked the rest of us a question – how many of us had focused on beating him in our 2nd round?
Nearly all of us raced our hands.
He followed up with another question – how many of us thought about beating our own time instead?
No one raced their hand.
He wisely reminded us that we’d all have been better off focusing on improving our own time instead of attempting to beat him. We don’t control how everyone else does – but we do control our own performance.
I think of that incident from time to time.
Especially when thinking about any form of external success. There are always a host of people in our view who’ve made significantly more money, gotten promoted into more prestigious roles, “made it” at more successful companies, and so on.
Any time spent in such comparisons is a sure-fire way to be unhappy. Someone always has the bigger home and there’s no point counting someone else’s money.
Best to focus on our performance and our attitude. It is what we control.
