Why Not . . . Stop Competing with Others?

“If you get yourself too engrossed in things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you do have control.”

–John Wooden

Listening to yet another lecture on TED (my new favorite app), I came across John Wooden’s advice on true success. And toward the beginning of his speech I heard him state the following, “You should never try to be better than someone else.”

Believe it or not, this advice was instilled in John Wooden (the successful and well-respected UCLA basketball coach - 949-1975) growing up from his father growing up on a small farm in Indiana.

What? How can a coach (and a successful coach at that – 10 NCAA Championship) follow such a mantra? And then he explained.

“Never try to be better than someone else, always learn from others, and never cease trying to be the best you can be because that’s under your control. And if you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to things over which you have no control, it will adversity affect the things over which you have control.”

A bit of a paradox most certainly. When you choose to only compete with yourself and not others, you place the responsibility of success on your shoulders, and at the same time allow yourself the opportunity to discover great contentment upon reaching your goals.

Today I’d like to take a look at why we should all strive to only compete with ourselves and leave others out of the game (figuratively speaking) per John Wooden’s advice.

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Why Not . . . Stop Multi-Tasking?

In an effort to save time and check off more items from the to-do list, multi-tasking initially seems like the ideal way to improve your production. For example, while you’re cooking breakfast, why not talk on the phone, or continuing to check your email while sitting down for a meal. Needless to say, neither task is likely to be done well, and if that’s the case, why do we keep choosing to multi-task?

After all, isn’t the purpose of living to be consciously aware of what we’re doing so that we may luxuriate in all the moment has to offer, not just doing it to get it done? Multi-tasking, I’ve come to discover, is akin to wasting time, although it may not seem that way at first. In other words, when we choose to multi-task we choose to not be consciously aware of the moment we’re in because we are too busy trying to just get something done simply to be done with it.

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