The Guy I Was Trying To Beat Doesn't Exist [WRAP 213]

Hey Reader,

Ever caught yourself frustrated about not performing the way you wanted to... even when the situation didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things? How do you balance holding yourself to a personal standard against not letting a bad showing get in your head?

I was dealing with that question Friday morning. I'd played two softball games Thursday night, didn't get to bed until midnight, was up with the kids at 2, and somehow still dragged myself to jiu-jitsu at 6am. Where I proceeded to get tapped a dozen times by guys I usually hang with just fine.

I rolled off the mats annoyed at myself for underperforming. Then I got in the car and started thinking—wait, underperforming what?

Quick aside before the rest. If your AI tools aren't living up to your standard as a creative partner, you're the kind of person I built Claude for Creators for. We start Monday and there are only 3 spots left. See real examples of workflows, skills, and a replay of this week's Q&A on the info page.

💡 One Big Idea: Play Your Own Game

The version of me I was comparing myself to on the mat? Slept eight hours. Didn't play two softball games the night before. Showed up fresh, sharp, mistake-free.

That guy doesn't exist. He wasn't on the mat. I was on the mat—running on four hours of sleep, sore shoulder, drilling positions I've drilled fifty times. The question wasn't whether I rolled clean. The question was whether I showed up at all.

There are real scoreboards in life that keep you honest. But most of what I beat myself up about doesn't sit on one of those. Hobbies don't. Family doesn't. Friday's jiu-jitsu rolls didn't. The second I started keeping score against an imaginary version of myself, I forgot why I was there.

I was there to have fun.

The whole reason I train is because there's something about getting tapped, getting back up, and finally getting it a few weeks later that nothing else scratches. The fun is the point. The fun is what gets me back at 6am on Monday.

The hobby version of me, the dad version, the friend version—none of those need to be optimized. They need to be practiced and I need to be present. That's the win.

Check whose standards you're measuring yourself against. The version of you you're measuring against right now might be a composite—everyone you follow online, every podcast from this week, one really good day from three years ago you can't seem to repeat.

You can't beat that guy. He's not real.

The guy who's real is the one who showed up tired, played the game in front of him, lost a few rounds, learned something, and went back for more next week.

Play your own game. The one you actually signed up for.

📹 Video to Watch: I Cut My Screen Time By 43%... With A Printer

Speaking of playing your own game—I made a video about a weird thing that's been happening to me. AI has roughly tripled my output the past six months, but instead of working less, I was just throwing more hours at the machine because of what it could do. So I tried something odd: I used AI to push me toward more analog work, not more screen work. It started with a printer trick and I'm shocked by how much it's helped.

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📰 Article to Read: The problem with infinite choice (and the joys of settling)

​This article from my friend Steve Kamb hit me right in the time blocks. The whole piece is about how the "best" choice is usually the enemy of the good-enough choice you'd actually follow through on. As a recovering over-optimizer, I've spent a lot of years trying to make every decision the perfect one—what to write, what to ship, what to read first—and the cost of that calculation is almost always higher than the cost of just picking something and going.

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Thanks for reading the WRAP!

Matt "Print One Page" Ragland