Day 1 vs day 500: Stop comparing yourself to others

I was scrolling TikTok and saw some fitness guy doing 100 pushups in a row. Barely breaking a sweat. Perfect form. Like it was nothing.

I looked at myself. I can do maybe 40 pushups. I'm 34 years old.

For a second, I felt pathetic. Like I should be able to do more. Maybe I'm just lazy.

Then I caught myself. Two years ago, I could barely do 5 pushups. Five. With terrible form. Struggling to complete the last one.

That guy doing 100 pushups? I have no idea when he started. Maybe he's been training since he was 15. Maybe he started at 20 pushups, not 5 like me. Maybe he trains 6 days a week and I train twice.

I'm comparing my day 170 to his day 3,000. Of course it looks bad.

All I see is the end result. I don't see the years of work. I don't see his starting point. I don't see the advantages he might have had. Better genetics, more time, earlier start, professional coaching.

I'm comparing my middle to his highlight reel.

When I compare my 40 pushups today to my 5 pushups two years ago? That's a completely different story. That's an 8x improvement. That's consistent progress over time. That's showing up even when I didn't feel like it. That's the result of work I actually did.

You might think 40 pushups at 34 is nothing impressive. You might be right. But it's infinitely better than 5.

Stop comparing yourself to others. You don't know how long they've been working. You don't know where they started. You don't know what advantages they had.

Compare yourself to your own yesterday. That's the only comparison that actually matters.