Focus on Your Own Lane

When I first started swimming on a local masters team I learned very quickly that focusing on what someone else was doing in their lane – how fast they were swimming or how many laps they were doing – distracted me from my own pursuit of getting better. In an effort to try to keep up with the person next to me I would swim frantically and lose control of my technique which obviously didn’t help me swim any faster and only reinforced bad habits. It took a lot of discipline to learn how to focus on my own lane and trust that with patience and intentional effort the rest would follow. 

How often do you get distracted by what someone else is doing in their lane? It’s easy to get caught up in what other people are doing and where you feel like you’re falling short. But this type of comparison only leads to rushing the process and frantic decision making which will slow your progress in the long term. To stay focused on your own lane is to do the hard thing of accepting the part of the process you’re in and seeking satisfaction in the work itself.