It's hard not to compare yourself to others.
We learn from others.
We mirror, we model, we emulate.
We're told "Find people who are doing what you want to do and mimic them."
How else can you
- measure your progress?
- establish a baseline of expectations?
- define the parameters of realistic goals?
- identify the rules you want to break?
- determine where the boundaries of healthy rebellion lie?
We look to others for inspiration, for reminders of our own potential, for what is possible.
But so often your interior monologue snatches at the vocabulary of envy, guilt, and shame. Insecurity seizes on the measures of another to hurl as barbs of unnecessary self-judgment and unhealthy self-criticism.
It's important to remember that when you run across a difference -- a place where you're tempted to feel you don't "measure up" -- what you really may be uncovering is a distinction.
All that makes your path adventurous, your experience unique, your contribution original.
When think you're "not doing it right," maybe you're just doing You.
image credit Simon Pais via Creative Commons on Flickr