New shoes fit just fine!

Run your race, not someone else's

“Two men were walking in a forest, when they suddenly saw a savage, hungry-looking bear. One of the men quickly put on a pair of running shoes. The other guy exclaimed, “You idiot! You can’t run faster than a bear …”

To which the first guy replied, “But I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I only have to run faster than you!”

I have heard that little story told to get the wrong point across (especially from a former boss of mine). Usually the person relating the story uses it as a spring board to convey some point along these lines. “If you want to be successful,

Tracy, you must outrun your competition. No. He was missing the bigger picture.

I caught myself falling into that line of thinking at my last job. Things have been nuts this year (ok…ok….watch the news for 5 minutes and see doom and gloom). We’ve all been scrambling just to keep our heads above water. But you know what? I woke up and realized one day…”Is this the best I can be?”….”Being surrounded by people that are so worried about the competition…so worried about the economy….…..so worried about what is being said about them in the marketplace…..”

Run your race, not someone else's.

My new thinking…..”Truly successful people don’t keep their eyes on everyone else’s progress. They keep their eyes on their own lane.” If you measure your success relative to how everyone else is doing you’ll probably end up far below your potential. I will be running my own race from now on.

We all have seeds of greatness planted within us. Those precious seeds will ultimately come to fruition when we maximize our potential. And we can’t maximize our potential when we are focused on how poorly people around us are doing.

Run your race, not someone else's.

Rather than simply trying to outrun the next guy, take a close look at which track you are on. Too many people have spent their entire lives climbing the ladder of success only to find they had it leaning against the wrong wall. MAKE SURE you get your ladder against the right wall…..mine wasn’t for years.

Ask yourself…are you running the best race for you? Or are you running someone else’s race better than they are?

Run your race, not someone else's.

Take the time to find the best race for you to run. Then don’t let yourself get distracted by how “others” are running the race you were meant to run. Run your race to the absolute best of your ability.

Now…excuse me while I lace-up my new pair of running shoes……