“I don’t want to compete with them, I want to celebrate every part of them.”
This is what I told God as I transitioned into a month where my team was split. The three of us – Megan, Averi, and myself – would be placed with 5 other women on another team while the guys on our team would have a month of only men.
In Botswana or last month, I was battling the feeling at times that I had to prove myself.
As time passed, the more tempting it was to prove that I was just as spiritual, just as connected to God, just as athletic, conversational, relational, funny, good at cooking, caring, a loving friend, confident, a bold initiator, marvelous storyteller, good leader, empathizer, financially frugal, and insert other categories here. I wanted to be just as good or better. I had this temptation to compete and constantly compare with the other two ladies on my team. I couldn’t imagine the war with myself I was about to have with five more females in the mix.
We do this as women all the time. It’s like we are ingrained with repeatedly processing where we stand in the race with each other. I fully believe that I realized this more last month because I didn’t want to compare or compete. I didn’t like that natural instinct because I care about these two women a lot. Plus, they are some high quality, amazing human beings. I wanted to kill the natural inclination to rank myself. It was difficult because I know I’ve fallen into a place often of wanting to be perceived as the best.
It’s also easier to compare and compete with the people closest to you.
Jess Connelly, author of Wild and Free, spoke into this last week on a podcast I was listening to from a previous World Racer named Stephanie Wilson,
“I realized in a few different categories I was trying to figure out where I ranked. Out of all the moms I know, where am I on the scale of the best? Out of all my friends, if I’m measuring who is the most fit, where am I? As it pertains to the most generous or the most kind, where am I on those scales? I think we all do that all day long. And basically I want to know in every relationship or interaction – am I more well known than her or less well known than her? Am I more successful or less successful? Am I a better dresser or a worse dresser? Am I more giving or less giving? Do I work harder or less hard? Do I have more money or less money? Do I save my money better or do I save worse than she does?
I’m out.
I don’t want to be in the running anymore. I’m not going to do this to me, I’m not going to do this to the Lord, I’m not going to do this to women around me. I’m not trying to be the cutest. I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be the prettiest. I don’t want to be the best mom. I don’t want to have the cutest house. I don’t want to have the cleanest car. I don’t want to write the best book. I don’t want to have the best Instagram feed. I want to worship the Lord.”
A weight lifted when she said this. It’s like I was being given permission to stop sweating, pounding pavement, and calculating where I was in the race.
I don’t need to hustle to keep up, I need to be focused on becoming the woman the Lord made me to be. I need to hone in on being her to the fullest without thinking the only way to do that is by also looking at the other women running in the same race. Their goodness, beauty, success, amazing qualities doesn’t subtract from my own. It’s okay for me to be growing and becoming stronger but what isn’t healthy is looking sideways at others and ranking myself.
It’s like thinking oxygen will run out in the world and we are trying to desperately gasp it in. We do that as if there’s a limited amount of air but in reality it’s limitless. If she beautifully delivered a message to a group of people, that doesn’t mean she is first in public speaking and I’m last. If she wins the game, that doesn’t mean I’m bumped lower now in athleticism. One woman doing well doesn’t mean you aren’t.
It’s not that you stop running, you just stop competing. As Jess Connelly also said,
“It’s like a 10K run and saying ‘I might just have won, I don’t know.’ The purpose is you’re still running, you still get the joy of doing the thing you were made to do. You’re not quitting. You just don’t care where you end up.”
Comparing and competing with other women steals our joy and authentic connection with one another. What’s the point? What benefit is there in us feeling like we are the best? If that’s our ruler of what we are worth than we are looking in the wrong place and will always be hustling in life. There’s nothing we earn by being the best other than temporary, flimsy confidence.
Confidence should come from the knowledge that the Lord made each of us with differences and similarities and with our own beautiful depths and nuances. He didn’t do that to create comparison or competition. Even if another woman does do well in one area and I don’t, that doesn’t lessen my value. I want to celebrate women and my friends instead of insecurely desiring to outdo them. I want to be the woman God had in mind when He thought me into existence.
I want other women to have that too and for me to celebrate them. To celebrate her successes, beautiful marriage, big milestones, relationship with the Lord, personal strengths, ability to love, all of it. There is benefit in THAT. There is power in choosing to love, empower, forgive, and build up other women rather than tear them down or trying to rank higher than them.
The Lord doesn’t want you to try to be the best, He wants you to follow and align your heart with His. My favorite line from Connelly is ‘I want to worship the Lord.’ That’s it. Everything else, you can consider me out of the running. I don’t care where I end up. I only care that my feet keep running for the Lord.
