The Only Rival That Matters
Most people are winning the wrong race; it’s time to stop looking at the competition and start looking in the mirror.
“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” — William Faulkner
We spend so much of our lives looking sideways. We check our neighbor’s lawn, our colleague’s promotion, or our rival’s highlight reel. We think if we can just outpace them, we’ve won. But Faulkner hits us with a reality check: chasing someone else’s ceiling is a waste of your potential.
If you only aim to beat your peers, you’re letting their limitations set your boundaries. That’s playing small. The real magic happens when you stop competing with the world and start competing with the version of yourself that woke up this morning. Shoot for the “impossible” goal—the one that scares you a little—because even if you miss, you’ll land far beyond where “good enough” would have taken you. Your only true benchmark is your own growth.
Something to Think About: What is one “impossible” dream you’ve been suppressing just because it doesn’t fit into the status quo of your social circle?