(2-minute read…I promise)

My 5 year old son loves to take off sprinting every time we go for a walk. Without fail, every time he hits top speed, he looks over his shoulder to see if we’re trying to keep up with him.

No matter how many times I tell him to keep his eyes on the road to avoid stumbling, he can’t bring himself to stop being concerned with what might be creeping up behind.

One of these days he’s going to fall. The consequences will likely involve tears, Neosporin, and a few bandaids. This seems to be a lesson he will have to learn the hard way.

The mistake Collin is guilty of making again and again is much like the one we as gym owners routinely make. We can’t help but lose sleep over what the competition is doing. We monitor their Instagram feeds, we second-guess our own training decisions based on what we think they may or may not be doing, and we lose sleep over things we can’t control.

So, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell Collin every single night as we take our post-dinner family walk...

If you’re already sprinting as fast as you can, there’s no point of wasting the limited energy and resources you have left on being concerned with what’s potentially sneaking up behind you. Unless you’ve got a gear we’re all unaware of, your best is going to have to do, and you can’t react to the hurdles approaching in front of you when your eyes are pointed in the wrong direction.

Focus on being the best version of you that you can be, and you’ll be able to say that you’ve put your gym in the best possible position to survive. I’ll promise you this — the gym that’s chasing you has their eyes forward, and they see your operation as one of those aforementioned hurdles just waiting to be leaped.

Can you afford to slow down by looking back?

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