Sometimes You Must Remind Yourself, “That’s Not My Path”

I’ve got a lot of successful friends. Meaning my contemporaries (that I either work with or went to school with) have accomplished some really amazing things in their short lives, and I’m sure that it is only the tip of the iceberg. Arguably, they have miles and miles of more success in front of them, and the best is yet to come.

This can be frustrating to anyone who feels like they aren’t moving nearly as fast as everyone else (guilty!). Sometimes you’ll see your friends making huge moves in their careers, or making a crapload of money that you can barely fathom, or they have something so unbelievably great happen to them that you get frustrated with your own slower progress.

Sometimes you just have to remind yourself that their path is not yours.

You have talents that they don’t have. You have experiences that they don’t have. You may have fewer or more resources than your contemporaries. But they (and you) will have successes and failures that are uniquely your own. It doesn’t mean that you are the first person to make a mistake or suffer from it, but since you’re coming from a different place in life than someone else, it is unique to you.

No one really knows what happens behind closed doors. You don’t know what it took for someone to reach a particular level of success. You don’t know how many failures or wake-up-calls it took for someone to make a particular move. You don’t have the answers, and that’s okay.

If you’re frustrated, this is your opportunity to let yourself shine. You’ve got talents, dreams, and ideas that are just waiting to be put into action. You can’t put them into action if you’re wondering what someone else is doing. You have to do you. Cut yourself a break and be the best that you can be as often as you can be. When you give yourself 100%, you become better. When you invest in yourself, you become stronger. You will eventually be the vision that you have for yourself.

And when you get there, everyone will be in awe of you.

Be yourself. It’s the only thing that no one else can be. 🙂