📏 Do you measure up?

This week’s manly topics:

⛑️ MINDSET They say comparison is the thief of joy. Is trying to be someone else’s best self stealing yours?
🚀 ACTION If you were stranded on a desert island and could only do one exercise, this would be the one to do … so let’s make sure your doing it right.
📰  NEWS We scoured the web and found useful stuff to share with you. This week’s topics include training news as well as relationship tips.
🔎 WHAT ABOUT YOU We’re keeping our exercise goals poll open a little longer to give more of you a chance to weigh in (pun intended.)

PLUS, subscriber-only offers from our sponsors and partners. Let’s go!

MINDSET
Do you measure up?

In MTM #2, we explored the transformative power of focusing on your "Gain" rather than your "Gap." Today, I want to dive deeper into a related concept that has profoundly affected my life: the downward spiral of discouragement fueled by a compulsion to compare myself to others.

For much of my life, I compared myself to those I perceived to be more successful than me. I compared myself to other guys who were taller, stronger, and better looking than me.  I compared myself to leaders in my church, even other guys in my Bible studies. In every case, I judged myself to be less than and never enough.

Comparison. Coming up short. Discouragement. A downward spiral that drained my passion and became a self-fulfilling prophecy that made me less … less for my wife, less for my children, less for my business.

After a day or so, the depression would lift and I could function until I crossed paths with someone that I thought was more than me…more success, more money, more muscles. The discouragement loop started spinning again.

A reckless race to catastrophe

From anyone else’s perspective, I would have been considered a success: I had a beautiful family, I owned a business and was respected in my community. But, since I defined “success” as someone I knew who was more “successful” than me, I knew it was not enough. I was not enough.

In the mid-2000’s, I met a great guy who was making a killing flipping houses. From my perspective, he had it all: a wildly successful business, loads of money to prove it. So I made it my goal to match his success and then exceed it.

The chase was exhilarating at first but it made me reckless and thoughtless to the cost on my finances, my family and my employees. I came a breath away from bankruptcy and that, for me, was like the bright sunlight after a regrettable night.

My compulsion to compare and to prove myself worthy threatened everything I loved.

A simple truth that changed everything

The turning point came in 2009 as I was crawling out of my financial crater. I’d read the Bible for years and thought I understood it to the point that its truths framed my life. But, in the wake of the recent disasters, I realized I had been living like an ignorant fool.

1. The Bible tells me I am made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27) … but I was always trying to make myself into the image of whatever successful guy most recently impressed me. 

2. The Bible tells me I am marvelously made (Psalm 139:14) … but I was preoccupied with what I judged to be physical deficits.

3. The Bible tells me God has created me for a unique purpose and equipped me with everything I need to fulfill it (1 Corinthians 12:18-20; 2 Tim 3:16-17) … but I was more interested in living some other guy’s purpose.

The simple truth was success is simply being a better version of the person God made me to be; better physically, better emotionally, better intellectually so I can be a better man, a better husband, a better father, a better leader and better positioned for whatever the future may hold.

Starting the MoreTheMan newsletter you are now reading is the result of my adopting God’s perspective on me and setting aside my own.

How about you?

Have you struggled with comparison compulsion? Do you beat yourself because you're not as (insert attribute here) as some other man? Are you wasting your time and energy trying to be something and someone you are not? If so, please consider this your invitation to get off that exhausting psychological treadmill.

Easier said than done, I know. Old habits are hard to break. The best way to rid yourself of them is to replace them with good habits. Here are some suggested good habits:

1. Write down the Bible verses I mentioned above on index cards or Post-It notes and put them in places you will see them and be reminded. 

2. Memorize them. Dust off old study skills like repeating them a few times each day … especially when you feel compelled to compare. Dislocate your corrosive thoughts about yourself with God’s dignifying thoughts about you.

3. Set one physical and one mental goal you can accomplish in the next three days. Examples could be reading a chapter of a book each day and applying a biohack from a previous issue for a week (here are a few for ease of reference: Core Conditioning, Breathing, Morning Light, Intermittent Fasting.) Make it through three days? Celebrate and send me an email so I can celebrate with you!