You Are Your Biggest Competition

Lynda Emmett
Written by Lynda Emmett

For most of my life, I thought the threat was outside of me.

Her.

The perfect woman on social media.
The wildly successful Coach and Hypnotherapist.

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

The effortlessly chic, put together magnetic one who never breaks a sweat, a nail, or a nervous system.

I thought she was my competition.

But it turns out, My competition is way closer to home. In fact, she lives in my head – rent-free and sounds suspiciously like a toxic blend of my inner critic, a burned-out people-pleaser, and that one mean girl who tormented me every day as a kid when I walked out the school gates.

She’s the one who whispers,

“You’re too much.”
“Don’t post that.”
“What will they think?”

She’s not on a flashing neon winner at life leaderboard. She’s behind my eyelids.

Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash

Every time I start to really rise and build momentum, she tugs my sleeve like a little toddler with trust issues.
Every time I go to speak boldly, she clears her throat and reminds me of every time I’ve been judged, ghosted, or side-eyed by another woman.

“She’s a vibe killer in skyscraper stilettos ,my toes contort at the mere thought of wearing.

And for so long I have let her win. I would skulk back into the shadows staying small.,not just because I feared she might be right, but  because, deep down I believed her. And worse I believed I had to defeat her before I could ever be the version of me I so deeply wanted to be.

But here’s the twist in the plot:
It is when I stopped trying to silence her or drown out her voice with coping mechanisms,
And I started to listen to her and what she needed that I ended the internal conflict and I was finally free to show up in every version and every colour that is me

Because healing, for me, hasn’t been about perfection it’s been about acceptance.
Accepting every part of me the messy, the scared, the too-much, the not-enough.
Learning to hold myself with compassion and patience, even when it’s hard.

Staying when I want to disappear.
Speaking when I want to shrink.
Choosing presence over approval,
again and again.

That’s where health lives, too — not in green juices and yoga poses but in reclaiming your power from all the spaces and places you handed it away.

So now, when I go to post something vulnerable or launch something bold, and she flares up again with her old lines — I just smile and say:

“I hear you. I see you. I love you but I don’t need you right now”.

And that, to me, is wellbeing.
Not flawless. But free.

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

So if you’re also battling the version of you who keeps shrinking, hiding, hesitating?

Let me remind you:

You are not behind. You’re just facing the hardest competition of your life — your old self.

And you don’t need to beat her.
You just need to outgrow her. By moving beyond the boundaries she has been afraid to cross.

Do it for you & for her.


Main – Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash