BETTER THAN YESTERDAY

I used to think I had to be the best. If I wasn’t the best, then I didn’t want to do it. In high school, I wanted to be on the cross country team. The team practiced in my neighborhood, and I always admired how graceful and athletic the female runners looked during their practice runs. One morning, I set my alarm clock early because I wanted to go out for a run before school. I remember that it was still dark out, and I couldn’t even make it to the stop sign at the end of the street. I walked back home, went back to sleep, and set aside my dreams of being on the cross country team. I obviously wasn’t good at running so I wasn’t interested in doing it anymore.

I’ve come a long way since high school!

Fast forward about 15 years… After having children and gaining a lot of weight doing so, I started running. What I learned is that you don’t just go out and have an easy run. You have to practice and build up to it! Just like in my high school days, I started with trying to run to the end of the street. I was soon able to run a mile without stopping. Eventually, I became a decent long distance runner and even ran marathons. I often thought about that cross country team I never made and wondered what might have happened if I had kept setting my alarm clock early and had kept trying to make it to the end of the street without stopping.

A few years ago, I walked into my old gym, World Camp CrossFit, where my coach was on a ladder putting some vinyl lettering on the wall: BETTER THAN YESTERDAY. I remember thinking that that sure was a catchy saying. I had recently started CrossFitting so I assumed it meant that every day I come to the gym, I will get better, faster, stronger than I was the day before. And it does mean that, however, it soon came to mean something entirely different to me.

BETTER THAN YESTERDAY gave me permission to not have to be the best. I just have to be better. If I have a bad day at the gym and have trouble reaching my personal record on a lift, I simply remind myself that I am better than I was before I started strength training. If I totally blow my diet and eat an entire cheesecake at dinner, I remind myself that tomorrow I can start all over and be better than I was the day before.  Every day, I can strive to be better- a better wife, a better mom, a better coach, a better athlete. That doesn’t mean I have to be the best.

When you think you have to be the best, you are setting yourself up for great disappointment. No one can be the best every day. You are putting yourself under a lot of pressure when you hold yourself to such a high standard. But just imagine if all you had to be was better?

I wish I had a dime for every time I looked at this wall!

If there are areas in your life that need improvement, I challenge you to ask yourself every day, “Am I BETTER THAN YESTERDAY?” Make a list of the things you can do in order to answer this question in the affirmative. You don’t have to try to reach your goal in one day. Take baby steps to get there so you can be BETTER THAN YESTERDAY. Just like my trying to run to the end of the street, one day you may surprise yourself at just how far you have gone.