ONE QUESTION

Is your past a prison you lock away in a safe never to be seen again, or a school you’re choosing to learn from?

ONE THING TO PONDER

Optimizing life and optimizing productivity are necessarily the same thing.

ONE PERSPECTIVE

How much joy have you stolen from yourself by comparing yourself to others?

Who are you competing with?

If I can offer one suggestion, stop competing with others. I see it everyday. It's natural, it's just not always helpful.

I’ll offer one caveat here - if you’re comparing yourself to others with the intent to learn and develop, then carry on!

Yet if you’re doing it to validate yourself, that is the first sign of unnecessary and oftentimes inaccurate judgments.

The endeavor of chasing validation from others is fruitless. Others can’t validate you, that is your job. You can get temporary hits, but you’ll be chasing validation from others in perpetuity if you can’t find it within yourself.

So many of us are walking around trying to justify where we are by our comparison to others, it’s inaccurate at best and detrimental more times than not.

You weren't put here to compete against others, you were put here to maximize your own potential based on your own efforts and God given talents. 

The game of life is about understanding your strengths and gifts you were given, and then giving your full effort to utilize them to be of service and value to others.

There is only one person that knows if you’ve given your full effort, YOU.

The truth is that you can tell everyone around you that you gave your full effort, and if you didn’t, nobody will know.

…but you know who does - your soul knows.

Why comparison doesn’t matter

When you know you’ve given your full effort, it actually doesn’t really matter what the outcome is or what other people think. If you went all in and the outcome didn’t end up the way you wanted, I believe most people can accept that.

It’s when we don’t give our full effort that we damage our self-esteem and self-worth.

Take these scenarios for example:

- If you're competing against someone and win, does that mean you did your best? No, that's not what it means. You may have, yet it isn't a given. 

- If you're competing against someone and lose, does that mean you didn't give your best? No, again, you may have given your best and it didn't cut it. 

I'd rather get up everyday, give my very best to those around me and let the results fall where they may rather than attempt to get my validation based on where I am in comparison to others.

A win based on outside validation won't lead to winning on the inside. 

You owe it to yourself to maximize your life, to bring as much to others as possible. Not to win or get the accolades, but because it will be a life well lived. 

Focus on effort, not comparison. And when you do that, you actually end up doing your very best, which is truly the foundation of what really matters.

Onward and upward!

PODCAST

Questions Great Leaders Ask

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