I was listening to Dame Sarah Storey being interviewed on the radio the other day. She’s a Paralympian, one of the most decorated athletes in sporting history, and now works with her husband to encourage young people in sport.
One of the things that she talked about was being “the best version of you”, which is where they encourage young cyclists in their racing team to always try to beat their own personal best and not worry about what others are doing. She went on to say that you can’t control what other people are doing but you can make sure that you are always doing the best that you can and by focussing on that, your own performance will improve because that’s where all your attention is.
I may not want to be a gold medal-winning Olympic cyclist (as if that was ever an option – ha!), but Dame Sarah’s words really struck a chord with me. One of the things that I know I am guilty of recently is too much social media scrolling, and it’s so easy to fall into the comparison trap. “That person knits far more pairs of socks than I do; this person produces more patterns than me; I wouldn’t have thought to put those colours together; I wish I could draw like that; I wish I had their interior design style …” What starts off as a fun way to spend half an hour can leave me putting my phone down with a sense of dejection and overwhelm. Why can’t I paint gorgeous landscapes whilst baking fabulous cakes, decorating three bedrooms in an afternoon and whizzing out a few extra sock patterns in my spare five minutes? I’m obviously not organised enough, or I’m not talented enough, or I’m just plain lazy …