Your Scoreboard

Stop checking their scoreboard. Measure against your own.

You are in the arena. You are the one playing. And too often, in the middle of your own game, your eyes drift up to someone else’s score — and the second they do, your mind leaves the field.

You compare. And the comparison costs you the only thing that was winning your game: your focus.

Here is what you need to remember when you look up.

There is only one scoreboard that has your name on it. You versus you. Where you are now against where you were. That is the only matchup that means anything, because it is the only one you are actually playing in.

The other comparisons — you against him, you against them, you against the highlight reel of a stranger — those are for the people in the stands. Let them do that work. Comparing players is the spectator’s job. You do not have time for it. You are still in the game.

When you turn to look at another person’s score, you drift.

And drift has a cost. It is not harmless. Frustration enters through that window. So does the slow leak of motivation. So does something darker, on a bad day, when the gap between their score and yours becomes the only thing you can see. You went looking for a measure and came back with a wound.

Yes, another person’s score can sometimes light a fire. Inspiration is real. But know the trade you are making every time you look up — you are taking your eyes off your own target to do it, and the target does not wait for you to look back.

So keep your eyes down. On your own work. On your own score.

Where you were last year, yesterday, an hour ago. Where you are right now. Whether the line is moving in the right direction. That is the whole assessment. That is the only scoreboard that was ever yours to read.

Play your game. When you are dead and gone the ones in the stands can make their assessment. For now, you have work to do and the clock is running out, so stay focused on yourself and the game you’re playing right now.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.” — Marcus Aurelius