W.I.N. Wednesday: Beware the thief of joy.
"Comparison is the thief of joy."
Theodore Roosevelt
In my presentations on Dare to Be Great and The Pursuit of Personal Excellence I talk about being "your best, not the best".
Being your best is about making a commitment to get a little bit better every day. It is about building on your strengths and talents to be the best version of you. It is about doing the best you can with what you have on that day, or in that moment. It is about allowing yourself to be human. It is about owning up to your mistakes, learning from your failures and growing from the experience.
Striving to be "The Best" however, always requires a comparison. You must compare yourself to someone else, or someone else's definition of the best. Every other person has different strengths, talents, and experiences than you do. It is this comparison that too often causes people to lose the joy and give up the dream. They get frustrated and tell themselves, "I will never be as good as them so why bother trying." They allow comparison to steal the joy and the dream.
Abraham Maslow said, "What one can be, one must be." He did not say, "What someone else can be, so too must you be."
Learn from others. Listen to others. Find strong mentors and role models. Read, study, work and grow yourself. You can model the qualities of others without striving to be someone else.
What's Important Now? Strive for excellence. Dare to Be Great. Commit to being the best version of you that you can be and you will frustrate the "Thief of Joy".
Take care.
Brian Willis
www.lifesmostpowerfulquestion.com
Maximizing human potential through Life's Most Powerful Question - What's Important Now?
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