For some reason, over the past few days true competition has been a reoccurring theme for me.

The overall message: in life, you are your only competition.

I used to be addicted to stories of young entrepreneurs because they were such an inspiration to me, and I thought they were so amazing.

But then I realized staying up on all of these stories did nothing for me because, well, I am still not an entrepreneur. To be honest, I felt a little inadequate because that wasn’t me.

But then it hit me: that is not me. I am benchmarking myself against the wrong people. I realized I should be benchmarking myself against one person and one person only: myself.

Keeping up with the Joneses or stalking that student with a 4.0 GPA will not make you any better. Following all the blogs in the world will not be useful unless you actually do something. Being depressed because you aren’t somewhere you think you should be or want to be will not do anything for you.

In a recent TEDTalk, Daniel Pink cited an experiment where, when people where incentivized and pitted against one another, they actually did worse at the task at hand than those that were not. That tells me what should be motivating should be internal, or at least in some way related to the task at hand.

By not trying to beat out the person next to you, or just striving for that nice car or house, you actually have better chance of getting where you want to be. Your competition is The Best Version of Yourself versus Your Current Self. Are you winning?

This is the difference between undirected motivation and focus. Undirected motivation is anxious, but it doesn’t know what for. It wants, but it doesn’t know how it get what it wants.

Focus knows what it wants and how to get there. There is a reason why horses run races with blinders on.

Am I living up to my potential? Am I focused? That is what matters.