Yesterday, stumbled across a ‘memory’ in my photos app. A collection of photos from a week after we moved in to our current home. Autumn 2019 was wet. Very wet. And photos reflected that. But they also reflected a few other things. The mobile broadband antenna was up, so was the trampoline, and some of the 6 foot stinging nettles were cut. But more than all that, how far we’ve come was staring at me in the photos. While the location we now live is the same ‘three words‘ as it was in December 2019, the place is completely different.
When we work in change, it is easy to become discouraged. We tend to either compare ourselves to the vision of what or where we want to be (be that 10kg lighter, 10 times richer, or leading a high performing team or whatever). Or we compare ourselves to others who are further ahead on the path than we are. We focus on the lack. And we feel discouraged or worse.
However, when we compare ourselves to our former selves. To where we were 5 years ago, last year, or even last week, we will see change. We see how far we’ve come. We ‘see’ the change.
There will always be people further ahead on the path we are travelling. Comparing ourselves with them doesn’t help. Competing against ourselves puts us in the right mental mindset to continue to grow. When we look at our property, we see all the work that is still required to do – this doesn’t change. However, when we focus on the ‘still to do list’, we quickly become overwhelmed and discouraged. And yet, when we look at how far we’ve come, the ‘still to do list’ doesn’t change, but we are encouraged to keep going.
Pause for 60 seconds right now and think about where you were 12 months ago. How far have you come?
0 Comments