When Someone Else’s Win Feels Like Your Loss

For the past three years a group of friends and myself have ran the Hogeye Marathon Relay. It's a 26.2 mile loop broken into four segments of 8.5, 7.3, 6, and 4.7 miles and there are usually two girls and two guys on our team.

We're not the fastest runners, so the goal is always to just go out there and have fun. However, when I heard my buddy Mike joined another team, I secretly vowed to at the very least run faster that him.

Mike and I are good friends now, but we got to know each other as competitors first. I'd just moved to Arkansas and joined a local gym. I walk in for the 5pm class and as we're warming up, the coach Jasmine looks at Mike (who I'd never met) and says, "Uh oh Mike, looks like you have some competition."

The workout starts with a run, and fueled by Jasmine's jab at Mike, I take off. I stay a few reps ahead of Mike the entire workout. With only 20 kettlebell swings left, I run out of gas. He passes me, finishes his workout, and as I rest before hitting my final set of ten, he has the audacity to come up to me and yell, "Come on! Pick it up!"

I leave that class and think to myself, "What a freak. I mean who is that competitive?" Fast forward four years and we've now competed as a team at nearly 10 CrossFit competitions.

It's race day now and despite us growing closer as friends, I want nothing more than to smoke this guy. The funny thing? We aren't even running the same leg of the race. There's no real way to compare our efforts nor are we even competing against each other.

Mike finishes his 8.5 miles and actually came in six minutes faster than his goal pace. He's elated and tells us he really thinks he could have gone even faster.

I say, "That's great man!" but internally I begin to sweat. I have no clue if I can hold the pace he did and I have two less miles to run. My competitive nature makes it feel as if Mike's win is now my loss, despite the fact that they're completely untethered.

A few hours later, I finish my leg of the race and catch up with Mike and the rest of our friends at the finish line. I ran faster than Mike, and realize that only now do I give myself permission to celebrate his early victory. My own win became the condition required to celebrate my friends.

That feeling hasn’t been easy to shake, because it exposed something I don’t always want to admit. Sometimes the biggest barrier to encouraging others is the belief that their success somehow takes away from mine.

Stephen Covey described this as a “scarcity mindset,” the belief that there’s only so much success, recognition, or opportunity to go around. Specifically, Covey would tell me that I'm playing the zero-sum game, believing that total gains and losses equal out to zero. If Mike gets encouragement or recognition, there won't be any left for me.

When we zoom out it's easy to see that that's simply not the case. Someone else improving doesn't reduce or diminish what is possible for you or I.

So the goal now is simple, provide encouragement in the moment it’s due, regardless of whether I’ve experienced success myself. Genuine encouragement shouldn’t be conditional.

So the next time your friends, family, or colleagues find success, remember to cheer and forget to compare. The real win isn’t running faster, it’s cheering louder when they cross the finish line.

Fact

Research shows that social comparison happens automatically, especially with people similar to us, which is why friends’ success can feel more threatening than strangers’.

Action

Set a simple rule for yourself this week, if you think something positive about someone, say it out loud.

Question

Where in your life are you turning someone else’s win into your loss?

Quote

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” - Ronald Reagan