Perhaps you recently went on Facebook and saw that your hero (or your nemesis) published a new article that went crazy viral, or maybe they published a new book that hit the NYT’s bestseller list (it went all the way up to #1!), and to make matters worse, they posted pictures of their wonderful new house… and it hurts.
It hurts because no matter how hard you try you can never match up, much less surpass what they’re doing.
If we’re honest, we all have those people in our lives, on our Facebook/Twitter/Insta feeds.
Here’s what we have to do about them:
Okay, no, don’t scream. It’s going to be ok. (Well, scream if you really want to!)
- We have to do our own thing.
- Live our own lives.
- Create our own art.
- And, achieve our own results.
Too many of us fail not because we’re not good enough or that we don’t have the desire or the tenacity. No, we fail because we can never measure up.
We can never measure up to perception.
A study by Gothenburg Research Institute found that people who spent more time on Facebook ended up feeling less happy and confident. Abstract: “When Facebook users compare their own lives with others’ seemingly more successful careers and happy relationships, they may feel that their own lives are less successful in comparison.”
Even if you were to reach, or surpass, your hero’s achievements you would likely soon find someone else to unfairly compare yourself to, and thus, no matter how successful and happy you could be, you choose to be unhappy and unfulfilled because of what someone else is doing (or appears to be doing).
That’s right, it’s a choice. To compare or not compare is a choice. It always has been.
Ask yourself this:
Are you living and working towards your own goals or are you working towards what someone else has chosen for themselves?
There’s something better for you.
It’s okay to measure ourselves and look at how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go, but it should be for ourselves and what we want and not for someone else and what they want.
We all get mixed up in this at some point when we forget what we want and get caught up in living up to someone else’s dream because their achievements are so bright and shiny and seem so much better.
You know your situation is bad when you find yourself silently rejoicing (even if it’s secretly) at your nemesis’ missteps. This isn’t you.
Their dream is not yours. Their work style, their creativity, and their ‘life’ are not yours. You are a separate creation, with your own dreams and desires.
It’s okay to celebrate others and honestly say to yourself, “This isn’t for me, but I am happy for you!” By doing this, you release yourself from the limits you’ve put on your own destiny.
So many of us get terribly lost or are severely delayed because we’re fixated on what others are doing (or seem to be doing) and where they have chosen to go.
Your potential is incredible, beyond what you realize, and yet, it’s easily lost when you try to measure up to someone else’s potential and end up disregarding your own.
Don’t do that. The pain and regret that follows when you realize what’s happened is not worth it. Reach for your own potential.
Do your own thing.
The NYT’s bestseller list might not currently be your goal. Maybe you prefer to write a brilliant screenplay that will never appear on any bestseller’s list. But if you take on someone else’s goal you’ll end up half-assing a so-so novel when you could’ve been passionately writing your screenplay.
Why desire your hero’s penthouse in the city when you prefer the “home” feel of the small-town life?
Why seek to find your voice when you never lost it? Because someone else is openly searching for theirs you suddenly feel yours isn’t good enough? Hogwash!
These are not The Way. You’ll end up quitting if you follow such ways.
Serious writers never quit, they follow their own path and tell their own stories in their own ways.
Now it’s time to tell yours–your way.
