We’ve all heard this before…
“We are going to make sure we work harder than our competition…”
Woo! Yay! Everyone gets excited. I know I did when I first heard those words. But as I began to think about - work harder than our competition. I took myself out the hype and placed myself as the competition.
Sure enough, I heard, “We are going to train harder than anyone else,” followed with the same – Woo! Yay! Everyone gets excited.
Now I laugh.
When I started training, I constantly compared myself with other guys in the gym. I was in the mentality, that no one in here is going to outwork me. That was my ego getting the best of me.
As a strength coach, it’s our job to inspire and motivate our athletes to become better and reach their potential every damn day, because every rep, set, and day counts. I stood in front of a team after a grueling workout and told them, “I’m not going to say that we work harder than everyone else. Because somewhere, one of your opponents is saying the same frickin thing, and I could really care less about what they are doing.” (that’s just putting it in a nicer way)
I had a couple confused eyes.
Aren’t we suppose to be better?
But Coach, we want to work harder than everyone else.
Say what? What you talking about Coach Aipa?
It doesn’t matter what other people are doing. You have no control. You can’t control them like puppets to make them not work harder than you. It takes too much time and energy which will then cause you to lose focus on what matters the most.
YOU.
If you spend time thinking about what others are doing, then you are wasting energy which could be focused on what YOU are doing.
Sometimes towards the end of a workout, I actually look at myself and ask, “Did you do your best?”
Most of the times I give myself the nod. But there are times when I put weights back on the bar and make sure I do my best. This goes with anything. School. Business. Family. Sports. Training. Life.
The only person who’s going to know if you actually did all you could, is YOURESLF.