om mind
Stop comparing yourself to others and run your own race. By Kerry Curson
I
was never the sportiest of children. I
lost every race that I can remember
and didn’t even make it as far as
the swimming pool when I had been
nominated to enter a gala one year; I’d
spent the entire time in the queue vomiting
due to my nerves. I was quickly labelled a
health and safety risk to the water and had
to forfeit my place. Not great memories of
sport from my childhood, except for one. I
must have been nine or ten when I had been
called into a relay team for a competition
between schools. It was the first time I had
been to a real race track, with its winding red
tarmac just inviting you to daydream
of victory.
I don’t recall the race being particularly
important to me personally, however I do
remember the valuable piece of advice my
PE teacher gave us – a piece of wisdom
that resonates with me more now as I head
into my thirties and into motherhood for
the second time, than it did to a nine-
year-old non-sporty, non-competitive
race loser.
“Don’t look sideways,” my PE teacher
said. “Whatever you do, don’t be tempted
to look over at the competition – you justfrom teaching and practicing yoga and
mindfulness it’s that every individual’s story
is different, and it’s the experiences we have
that eventually lead us to the perfect place.
A place where we were always heading,
although it may not have been easy to see
from the midst of harder times.
Do not get into thinking that you cannot
do something because another person did
it this way, and somebody else did it that
way. This way of thinking will only limit your
potential. The truth is that your potential is
infinite, but you have to believe in infinity first.
Do not try to picture how you will make it to
your destination, just keep working diligently
and visualise your goal. Even things that you
did not expect to happen can turn out to be
exactly what you needed all along.
As my PE teacher suggested: don’t
look sideways at your colleagues or your
peers. They are living their destiny, you just
concentrate on living yours. Be grateful for
the lessons your life story has to offer and
the strength and wisdom this affords you to
go on and succeed.^Kerry Curson is a yoga teacher
and freelance writerDon't look
sideways
keep going forward. Keep looking ahead. If
you keep trying to look over at what they’re
doing, you’ll trip.”
I can’t remember the outcome of that
race, but I remember running prouder than
ever before, powered by those potent words
of encouragement. I never forget powerful
quotes. That’s what I love about language;
we can find such meaning in the simplest of
phrases. I believe this teacher’s advice offers
a whole world of wisdom that anyone can
learn from.
In a world full of fierce competition in the
work place, and the pressures of presenting
our life through social media, it couldn’t be
more apt. It is so easy to get sucked into
a game of comparison as we are able to
peek into the lives of old friends and even
celebrities and wonder at the things we may
feel we have been left wanting for. Here
I call upon movie producer Baz Lurhman
for another inspiring and reflective quote
from the life affirming Sunscreen Song:
“Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re
behind. The race is long and in the end it
is only with yourself...your choices are half
chance, and so are everybody else’s.”
If there is one thing I have learned