How to Stop Comparing Your Fitness Progress to Others

Nikkiey: Real quick, if you want to learn more about macronutrients and understand that methodology and how they can help you achieve your body composition goals of changing the way your body looks, I put together a free 15-minute training where I dive into macronutrients and how you can control your body for the rest of your life with them. That link is in the description below. Click on it after listening to the show today.

Everybody wants to put their body into a microwave and bam, out in 30 seconds pops a toned body. It ain't gonna happen like that.

What's up, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 94. I think this is going to be a short one, but to the point. I want to talk to you guys about detaching away from your fitness goals.

In earlier, earlier, earlier podcasts, I think this was one of the first three that I did, and I would highly encourage you guys to go back and listen to it. It's, I think, episode number two: forget about your goals, focus on the systems instead. Today is somewhat about that, but it's more around detaching away from your fitness goals. The things I shared in that other podcast were: you've got to focus on the systems, man.

You've got to focus on, if you want to get to X result, what are the things, backtracking from that, that you've got to put into place right now and that you have to be consistent with? Forget about the end state goal. What are the things that can be systematized? Getting your workout schedule done and being consistent with it. Staying hydrated and drinking your water daily. Tracking your macros or paying attention to your nutrition a little bit better. Those are your systems. It's a really fire podcast. You guys, go listen to it. Episode number two, I think. Don't hold me to that one.

But today, I want to call out my beautiful people who overlook their insane progress, okay? Because I'm a coach at heart. I still coach five women that I swear will never leave me, and I'm totally okay with that. I absolutely love them to death. They do the work. But also, beyond me, we have upwards of 30 coaches on the WarriorBabe squad who have a full roster of clients that they work with individually, one-on-one. And I know that myself and our coaches all have clients who, and this could be you, this is who I'm talking to, overlook their insane progress. So, my friends, listen up.

To us as coaches, we see the things. We see the progress. We look back at six months. We look back at a year. We look back at two years. We look at three weeks. We look at one week, and we see that you're doing things now that you weren't doing before. That is an amazing accomplishment to us as coaches. But y'all overlook some insane progress points that you are all making.

Many of you are still unfulfilled in this process, and you start tearing yourself down. You're six months in. We see the progress, but you're unhappy. You feel like you're not where you're supposed to be. You then fall into comparison with other people, which robs you of your success. You compare yourself. Maybe you're a VIP in WarriorBabe and you're in the community, or you have a small group with your coach, and you have friends inside of that group, which we do a really good job at.

I love the relationships we foster within our small groups of like-minded women. But maybe you're comparing yourself to Karen's success rather than where you're at in your journey, and you feel like you're not where you're supposed to be. Or you compare yourself to people in the Facebook groups. Or maybe you're not a WarriorBabe, you're on social media, and you're comparing yourself to those people's progress and those people's success. You're robbing yourself of your own success. You cannot compare your chapter one to somebody's chapter 10.

You cannot compare your week three to somebody's day 573. And you people who rob yourselves of your own success, you compare yourself, you feel like you're not where you're supposed to be, you feel like you're a failure or that you're doing things wrong. At this point, this is where I as a coach, or our coaches, will have a brutally honest conversation. Man, I've taken screenshots of my clients' progress from day one to day 60 and shown them side by side.

Clients don't normally do that. But that's what makes a really good freaking coach. They're not coaches, they're clients. So they upload those pictures and they don't give a fuck what those pictures look like. They just put them up there. They let the coach do the thing and then they forget about it. Am I right? I'm right, right? So it's our duty and our job to have these brutally honest conversations with you guys and let you know where you're at. Pull the pictures, pull the data, pull the numbers, and have you focus on the progress that you are actually making.

So what happens here, if you feel like you're that person, if you feel like you're not where you should be and you're comparing yourself to other people's success? Like I already said, don't compare your day one to someone's day 1,000. But what's happening is many of you are allowing outside forces, like friends and social media, to control your feelings and your thoughts about yourself, instead of learning how to control your own feelings and stay true to your own vision of yourself.

Pull it back and bring awareness into the situation: okay, this is my day seven, or this is my day 68. And my friends who are making incredible progress are on their year two. You're allowing them to control your journey, essentially, your feelings about everything, instead of staying true to your own feelings, your own vision and your own self on the journey that you are on.

Hey, guys, I love so much that you're listening to this podcast. If you ever want the video version of this, which usually has more effects and all that good stuff for those of you who are visual learners, check out the WarriorBabe YouTube channel. Either way, keep enjoying the show.

So many people indulge in this comparison thinking, where they measure their value based on what others are doing. Many, many of us do this. I personally still do this in other aspects of my life. It's just an integral part of how we as humans are wired. But going back to fitness, you may be saying, I don't look the way I want to look. These are examples of comparison thinking: I see so many women who look amazing and I just look the same. Or, others have reached their fitness goals faster than I have. Take a second.

I want to feel like I'm speaking directly to you, even though I'm speaking to the camera, to the mic. I can see you guys in front of me right now. Honestly, can you admit that you do that? That you think those things? Especially the women, or humans, listening to this who are at the beginning of their journey. You're in this comparison thinking process where you're comparing where you're at to someone's future state.

Can you honestly admit that? Because it's so important that you can honestly take responsibility, to yourself, that you have this type of thought process. When you're able to take ownership and responsibility for these thoughts, you're bringing awareness to the thoughts, my friends. And when you bring awareness to the thoughts, you can say, okay, actually, let me take a step back here. But this is a problem. So that's the comparison thinking.

Whenever we're in the comparison thinking process, we are obsessed with the outcome of our goals. We are so obsessed with them that we want them to happen so freaking fast. It's literally just the way people are programmed nowadays. Everything happens so fast. The internet is accessible to you so fast. Wi-Fi is so fast. The way you text people is now so fast. So in this day and age, everybody expects everything to be so freaking fast.

You've heard me say this so many times as a joke: everybody wants to put their body into a microwave and bam, out in 30 seconds pops a toned body. It ain't going to happen like that. So for those of you who are obsessed with the end state of where you want to be, and you're trying to get there like yesterday, the key solution is that you need to detach yourself from your goals. And I don't mean completely, listen, because I firmly believe you always want to create a mental picture of what you want your body to look like.

In episode four of this podcast, I think it was, and it's so good, I talk about thinking forward to your future state, who you want to be, the body you want to have. What is that person doing? How is that person acting? And bring that into your reality right now. So I still love creating a mental picture of everything. I say not to completely detach from it because many people view detachment as moving away from something.

Like you're moving away from your goal, and you may start doing other things that are now not in alignment with that goal. So here is a new way to think about this. Detachment is being extremely close with your goals, but not letting them consume or control you. I'm going to say this again. If you're driving while you're listening to this, just make a mental note of what I just said. If you're listening and you can write something down, write this down.

Because this line can literally serve you for your entire journey. You can look back at it and say, that's right, I'm detaching from my goal in terms of not letting it consume or control me. Detachment is being extremely close to your goals, seeing it in your mind, but also understanding the journey you're embarking on and knowing it doesn't happen super fast. Let me say it again so you can write it down or make a mental note.

Detachment is being extremely close with your goals, but not letting them consume or control you. So you've got the long-term goals in mind. You're putting things into place right now that will compound in six to eight months, especially if you're just starting out your journey. You're doing things now that you didn't do two weeks ago. And if you keep doing them, they're going to compound in six to eight months.

And that is when the real results will show. So you're detaching from that long-term thinking and pulling closer to you the small goals you can hit daily, weekly and monthly that are in alignment with that long-term goal. The goal is still very close, but you're detaching to where it's not controlling or consuming you. And better yet, you're focusing on the things you can do daily right now, and just repeating them and being consistent with them.

These are the small things you're doing. Even the systems, if you go back and listen to episode number two, where I talk about focusing on the systems and forgetting about the goals. Forget about the goals, focus on the systems instead. Your systems are what you do daily, weekly and monthly that are in alignment with that long-term goal. So you're detaching, but you're extremely close to the goal, because the things you're doing daily are leading up to it. You're just not letting the goal at the end totally consume or control you.

Say you want to lose 50 pounds. Well, shit, 50 pounds ain't going to come off yesterday. But so many of you want that to happen so fast. You're so attached to the end state that it's controlling and consuming you. So you're going to be upset when you think you're not making progress yet, when you actually are. And along your journey, you won't feel fulfilled.

Like I said at the beginning of the podcast, so many of you overlook your insane progress because you're so attached to losing 50 pounds that losing 10 pounds isn't satisfying or fulfilling to you. Because you're like, well, I want to lose the other 40 extremely fast. Is this making sense? That is a road to disappointment and dissatisfaction. Many of you hope to get to the end state and then you can be happy.

Yo, let's rewind here. You can be happy right now. Be proud of yourself for the fact that you lost 10 pounds. Now I'm talking about the stretch from right now to the end state as a timeline. Ditch the freaking timeline. Ditch it. Throw it out the door. This is another aspect of being so attached to the end state and forgetting about the process you're about to go on, or are already on.

Fall in love with the process. Fall in love with your journey. Fall in love with becoming the best version of yourself. Live in the moment of every single day, every single macro tracked, every single workout done, every single bottle of water completed. Live in those moments. Be in control of what you can do today that will better you tomorrow, instead of letting that end state control the hell out of you so that nothing along the way is satisfying.

You just hate the process because you're like, why am I not there? Many of you have that type of mentality when you're embarking on a new journey, and I'm saying it's completely normal. I just want to help you understand how to detach from that so you can enjoy the journey you are on. It becomes so much more fulfilling, so much more rewarding.

And you're giving yourself permission to be happy. Okay? So to wrap this podcast up, I told you it would be short, simple and to the point. When you're on this journey and you're letting the end state control you, there's a lot of negative thought process. The things I said at the beginning of the podcast are negative thought processes. The comparison. The why am I not where I feel like I should be?

Just like you don't master walking in one day, change also doesn't happen overnight. So you have to turn that negative thought process, whatever you're saying to yourself that is negative and not supporting you, around, and remind yourself to trust the process. I know it sounds cliche, but it's so true. Think about any self-sabotaging thought you have throughout the day that is holding back your happiness and your ability to enjoy the journey you're on.

Flip it into a positive, and also pay attention to whatever triggers you to have these types of thoughts. Are you scrolling on social media and another person is further along than you, so you get yourself into a comparison trap? Are you stepping on the scale, the scale goes up, and all of a sudden you're emotionally triggered because you feel like you're putting in all of the work? Pay attention to these things. Know that they happen. They're going to happen along your journey, but you don't need to be so engulfed by them. You don't need to let them control you.

You don't need to let external circumstances, external people or environments control your thinking. You are in control of your thinking. You have the ability to control yourself, the journey you are on, the way you look at your journey and the way you proceed every single day on your journey. So that's the last little pillar I wanted to add: ditch the timelines. And the whole thing around detachment is, whenever you feel like you're in this thought process throughout the day along your fitness journey, be aware of it.

Snap. Bring yourself back to reality and say, okay, I'm aware of this. This is just part of my journey and I'm just going to keep going. All right, you guys. Appreciate you. Love you. And I'll see you in the next podcast.

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