I have a question for you – do you ever compare yourself to others? Wonder why good things are happening to others and not to you? Or the reverse – why bad things are happening to you and not to others? It’s an internal conversation that goes nowhere fast! I should know – I have a habit of doing it way more often than is healthy. After having been told by more than a few people more than once that such thinking is neither positive nor productive, I am FINALLY starting to recognize when those thoughts creep in and how to turn them around and direct them right out of my head. Today I had two times where those thoughts tried to invade my mind. First, one of the judges I clerked for sent out an email to all his former law clerks with the news of recent events with various clerks. New jobs, pregnancies, babies, great opportunities. I don’t have any of those to report right about now, so I’m happy for them but still thinking – sure wish I had some great interesting news to share. Hmmm . . . well, you can’t change that now, so get to work, get busy and try not to give it another thought. That worked fine until my sister called that afternoon to chat and we got on the subject of her new job and figuring out her new title. Uh-oh, twice in one day I’m expected to combat these feelings of not having any great new job or accomplishments to share. Here we go, down the path to the doldrums and wondering why oh why, poor me, when will it be my turn and on and on . . .
So what did I do? I put on my armor and went to battle! How did I hold off the enemy thoughts? I remembered a couple things:
(1) This is my life, my path. It’s not supposed to be like anyone else’s. Things will happen for me in divine order – on God’s schedule, no one else’s . . . not even mine. Other people’s success does not diminish mine and whatever “success” others find is not necessarily meant for me.
(2) I have some great things that have happened recently and those things are taking me closer to what I really want to do with my life. I ordered my business cards and they came in the mail recently, so I’ve been handing those out and talking up my coaching business. That is surely an accomplishment when I’ve been trying to get to that all summer! I also started envisioning other business tools and making a mental plan for starting work on those. I finished my coaching classes in June of this year. I’m making notes on the book I want to write. Most importantly, I’m starting to see what my future is going to be and I’m moving toward it. Progress may be slow, but it is surely there. And every time I even think about going to those “woe is me” doldrums, I just need to remember all this FANTASTIC news about my life, my breakthroughs, my lessons learned, my blessings. It’s true – it’s all about my perception and right about now, my perception of my life is: IT’S WONDERFUL AND I LOVE IT!
