Are You Wondering If What You Do Makes A Difference?

We live in this crazy world. Every single person who has ever lived is different. Unique…none an exact copy of the other. Yet, we wake up and succumb to commercials, conversations and communications telling us to be more like someone else. Wear the same clothes someone else has. Drive the same car. Have a house that looks just like…

Our days are filled with encounters attempting to get us to “be like Mike” or someone else. It’s no wonder we constantly compare. We look at the pictures and updates our “friends” post on Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter and wonder why they get certain opportunities and we didn’t. We wonder what we are doing wrong since we didn’t see the same investment opportunity that James Altucher did. We look around to see how we can get better things …the better things someone else has. We look around and around and pass by the mirror. When we do stop at the mirror for a moment, what we see dissatisfies us. The reflection is not enough. What we see staring back at us is not what we want. We want to improve on it like last year’s model.

I wonder why this is natural. I had gotten to the point in my life where I compared where I was to other greats based on my age. When I hit 36, I started to wonder what was wrong with my life because by this point his life, Martin Luther King Jr. was leading a movement and changing the world. At 38, I still wondered if I had missed something because by this point, Elon Musk had owned several great businesses and was changing the tech world. He was only 1 year older than I was. Instead of using MLK and Musk for inspiration, I was putting the man in the mirror down for not measuring up. I was chastising him for not being aggressive enough or bold enough. I was making him feel like he had missed the boat and so now he would have to settle.

Then, one day, I got a message on Facebook from a former student of mine. I was a classroom teacher for 10 years. He thanked me for inspiring him to do his best. He said I never allowed him to get away with settling for failure. He didn’t know it at the time, but his message came just when I needed to hear it. He reminded me my job was simply to make a difference.

We look at age, net worth, perceived fame, perceived influence and use those as the ultimate markers for success. We use them as movable finish lines which we may never achieve. All too often, we place our self worth and self-validation in to the hands of an invisible judge who may or may not rule in our favor. But, the only person we can really measure ourselves against is the one we were yesterday. No one moves at your pace. No one walks with your gait. There is no one else like you. So, why do we expect our journey to be exactly like someone else’s?

It can often feel lonely moving down your path, not knowing if what you are up to makes a difference. But, there is power in knowing your path is your own. There are others on journeys also and you can use their perseverance as inspiration. But, their end point is different and the place where they pick up steam is also different.

I enjoyed watching the Olympics this year because of Usain Bolt. He is taller, more muscular, and even more easy going than most of the other runners. With his physical specimen, there are many assumptions made even before he steps out of the starting box. But, in the majority of his races, once the starter’s pistol sounded, he was one of the last out of the box. Of the 8 runners in the race, he would often be 7th or 8th out of the box. In fact, during the first 33% of the race, he would be close to the back of the pack. But, he always hit his stride at a certain point and ended up winning the race, often making it look very easy. What would happen if he were to compare himself to the other runners during that first third of the race? What would happen if he simply gave up or settled at that point because all of his training, all of the work he was doing at that point didn’t seem to make a difference?

It might feel a little lonely and the results you want may not seem to be on the horizon. But, what you are doing DOES make a difference. Focus on it. Double down. Press forward and tell the man in the mirror.