The Thief of Joy

You didn't get here by accident.

You got here by chasing a time, or riding farther than ever before. By lining up at a race and seeing where you stood. By pitting this season against last and asking: am I getting better?

Comparison built you.  It’s become a trusted tool, well-worn and familiar in your hand.  It’s gotten you this far.

But somewhere along the way, the tool changed.

The stopwatch compares you to yourself. The race compares you to the field on that day, in those conditions, with whatever you have in your legs. Objective comparisons – seconds on a clock, first over the finish line or not – both give you clear signals of where you stand.

With those signals, though, comes the noise: The post-ride data upload. The segment rankings. The power numbers in someone else's caption…this is where your trusted tool will fail you.  Where comparison stops being productive and starts eroding confidence, training consistency and what keeps calling you back to the bike.

Though I doubt he ever raced a bike, Theodore Roosevelt called it when he said, ”Comparison is the thief of joy.”  And the thief has never had more opportunities than right now. 

Here's what I want you to hold onto:

The comparisons that built you were pointed inward — am I better than I was? The comparisons that are draining you are pointed outward — why am I not where they are?

One is the signal. The other is noise.

You're still on the bike, still on your journey. You don't need to discard that trusty tool, but it’s OK to put it down for a while.

See you next week,

Steve