Compete Against Yourself, Not Others

You should spend very little time worrying about what your competition is doing. The race is always against yourself: your present-day reality relative to your long term goals and who you are today against who you were yesterday.

When you boast that you’ve beaten your peers or competitors, you do well to remember – you crossed an imaginary finish line, driving a different car on a different track in different weather.

And the competitor I compare myself to is not really my adversary, but my coach – because they inspired me to try harder. If I didn’t rate them and respect them, I would not have been motivated to “beat them”.

Listen to what Djokovic has to say about Federer and Nadal: “I want these guys to keep on playing, because they are one of the greatest sources of my motivation, without a doubt.”

So have rivals if you must, but avoid rivalries. Petty rivalries are for petty minds. Seek only inspiration from your competitors and respect them for bringing out the best in you.

It follows therefore that you need to be very particular about whom you choose as a rival.

Make sure they are worthy of the title.