We say things like I failed because when Clive Barker was my age, he sold a million copies, or I'm no good because Sean Paul broke into the American market and I couldn't.
A comparison like that can be destructive. Goals weren't made for toxic comparisons. If you don't feel good about what you're doing, you'll compare yourself to others who do better, making you feel worse. Make measurements of your progress based on yourself, your own business, not others. Make sure all your comparisons are against you.
Comparison is the thief of joy — Theodore Roosevelt.
It can drive you crazy if you set your standards based on an ideal that you didn't create. An ideal is like a horizon. It symbolises a distance, but you can never reach it. Like the horizon, the closer you get to your ideal, the further away it is. Ideals help you figure out a direction and plan a destination, but you can't reach it. You're not supposed to.
Perfection is an ideal.
The only healthy way of plotting your progress is by measuring backwards. We can look back over the day, the last thirty days, and the previous ninety days and count up our wins, big and small. This feels great and naturally leads to confidence and motivation as you rack up more wins as time passes. The momentum you can develop in your life because of this is significant, and like most useful psychological tools, I ask myself why haven't I been using it before
now.
How much better are you today than you were yesterday? I never really asked myself that question and was classing myself as a failure at certain things before I began to measure myself backwards. I can't believe in the past; I was upsetting myself because I wasn't writing four novels a year like an author I was reading about. Like an idiot, I'm subconsciously berating myself for not being able to do that.
I learned my lesson.
Yesterday I started a new chapter in the novel I'm writing. I added hundreds of words to the page. Today I've added more words to my story. I'm further along today than I was yesterday. You are farther along than you realise.
With all that in mind, I looked at my situation and realised my son was right; I am successful. I just didn't know because I was measuring my accomplishments from society's ideal or someone else. It feels good to know you're on your own: your wins and you're lessons are based on your standards and not anybody else's. No one else has your raw material, your incomparable and if you believe that, then why would you chain yourself to someone else's standards. Be willing
to be yourself and set your own standards and measurements.
Trust your gut if you're not where you want to be and keep experimenting until your results are favourable but always remember where you're coming from. So as we go into 2022, know this, measure yourself backwards because everything you do is a gain. You'll never start from scratch ever again because every day, you are improving on the day before. Your happier, you're free, you're progressing all because you look for the gains you've made. The more you look, the more
you will find and the happier you will be.
Now that's what I call a brilliant start to a new year.
