Monday Morning Motivation: Your Race Is Your Race

Monday Morning Motivation:
Your Race Is Your Race

“Never compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.”

Yes.. THIS!

I heard this recently from Susan Pazera, friend and one half of Good Enough Mother’s marketing and PR Team. She was at an inspirational conference for bloggers called Blissdom when the speaker, Jon Acuff, dropped this on the crowd, along with several other salient points.

You know how I feel about comparisons in general (hate ’em) but this one took on particular meaning in light of a recent conversation I had with a friend.

We were talking about the blogging business and my friend mentioned how lucky I was to have Ella helping me out. Well, the Ella part is true.. the luck, not so much.

Ella and I have been working together for the last year and a half; she goes down in the Good Enough Mother record books as the best to share duties with. We work well together, we call each other on our sh*t and I’m thrilled to have her as my right hand.

That’s what the last year and a half have looked like. But, as I have said before, I started this venture WAAAAAAY back in 2005 so if you do the math, you can see there was a whole lot of time where it was me with a vision. All by myself. Making videos from my closet.

Remember those?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2koygMoHiQ&list=UUXk-bP5q01V3zKw9IpQfphg&index=80[/youtube]

See, before Ella, Dave and Alexis, Team GEM consisted of me, myself and I. It was hard and many times, frustrating. More than that it was unbearably lonely. Back then I had two goals: I wanted to get back to the job I love (in a different capacity) and I wanted goodenoughmother.com to generate enough income to support itself. Now, eight years later, both of those things have become a reality.

I guess the thing I want to impress upon those reading this, and to my friend who prompted the post, if you’re going to compare (which I suggest you do NOT), at least be fair to yourself and make it an accurate comparison. Don’t look at where you are, which might be at the beginning of your journey, and wonder why you aren’t where someone else, who’s been at it for nearly a decade, is. There is no substitue for time and grade, so respect the process. Hunker down and learn what you can, all the while focusing on your own goal.

You’ll get there.. in your own time.

Now, tell the truth. Do you compare your journey to others? If so, WHY?