Comparison and Failure.

Comparison is such an insidious beast. We compare ourselves to others and how their lives look on Facebook or Instagram, we compare how we dress, our bodies, our relationships, sex lives, businesses, professional lives, our kids, pets… everything. The smallest thing can trigger a comparison.

Failure is another wrecking ball in our lives. Something doesn’t go as planned; something is much harder than we anticipated, and we don’t reach a goal in the timeframe imagined. A business goes south, we file bankruptcy, we close the business, we get fired, we drown in a job we hate and are afraid to leave, we fail our kids, fail our relationships, fail, fail, fail. And our mind, through that ever-present mind-chatter, gives us all the evidence to convince us that we definitely failed.

There is a commonly held belief that comparison and identifying our failures is “helpful.” It is a tool to “protect us” from future failures or to learn something. Here’s what I have to say to that. Bullshit.

Bullshit. Labeling something as a failure isn’t what protects you or teaches you the life lesson involved. In fact, the shame spiral of failure can keep you from the lesson or distort the lesson.

Comparison doesn’t protect us or teach us anything either. It diminishes us. We come out of the comparison lacking in some way.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself and learn your lessons is to continually tune into your inner guidance. That still soft voice. That doesn’t mean nothing will ever go “wrong.” Life would be incredibly boring if there was no adventure. No sorrow to contrast the joy. No pain to contrasts the pleasure. I think you’re like me and you want to live life to the fullest! Not in some bubble of perfection, even though the only place that exists is in our own fantasies.

You and I have one, unique, beautiful, glorious life. No one else has the same life I do, or you do, so there’s really no one we can compare ourselves to. There’s no such thing as failure because everything we do that “doesn’t work” or is an apparent set-back, gives us something to help us move forward, in our own, unique way.

That’s it. It’s you.

There’s no one like you. No one has your gift to give to the world. No one compares to you. Nothing you do is a failure. Everything is for you, in order to grow you into the greatest expression of your unique self.

Let’s ring in the new year in boldness. Claiming our unique, beautiful expression.

Failure and comparison are so... 2019!