We break down barriers; not records. We defeat our limits; not each other.
I remember seeing this commercial by Salomon Group about a year ago. And to my mind, what it represents is a very healthy attitude towards running, towards sports, and pretty much towards taking any other path of growth in life.
What it remimded me of was an article I read some years ago. It was about creating a motivational climate. That is, a climate which will best support growth and development of people included. Constructing such an environment has some basic underlaying principles, and one of them was: avoid social comparison. Basically, that means to stop saying: “look how fast he/she is running, look how strong or how elegant he/she is, etc.”. Such approach creates a pressure, which might also get you the results you want, but also creates many negative outcomes as a byproduct.
Focusing on your journey
What you can do, is to realise your potential. Even if you want to be fastest in the competition, the best thing you can actually do is to do your best. You will see more and more athletes being aware of this and showing that kind of mentality in their interviews. Athletes being focused on their effort and also evaluating their effort first (and not the result in compare to others). This is the pathway to continued and stable improvement.
This commercial from Salomon really caught my eyes and ears immediately. I guess it is not the prevailing message that I hear on TV, but I believe it is a very right one – and that it promotes a very healthy attitude towards sports and towards personal improvement.
Paradim 