This year… I hope you remember this…

Every time I hear this or I see this statement, I just want to scream.

The statement is ”I am only a” fill in the blank ”I want to say, please don’t say that, it’s NOT TRUE!

This phrase always seems to show up somewhere, and it drives me crazy because each of us has something incredibly amazing to offer the world, so “only” is never an accurate word to describe you.

You may look at your life and think that you should be further along, or think that at your age, you should have accomplished more. Join the club…I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel that way in at least one area of their lives, but are you being just a little to hard on yourself?

Can I tell you the TRUTH? You, just like each and every one of us is under construction… You are not perfect, you are a work in progress, you are still working on things.

Most of us, you, me and the rest of the world tends to compare ourselves to completed products, or people and processes that are way ahead of us.

Let’s break this down a little bit. Next time you compare yourself and where you are, to someone else, please ask yourself, are you doing a real apples to apples comparison? It is easy to look at where other people are and compare your present state to where they are. The problem with that comparison is you don’t know where they started, you only know where they are. If you don’t take into account that the person you are looking at is years ahead of you, because they have been working for years you can get really frustrated and disappointed about where you are. You just started, and they have been working for years, what kind of comparison is that? If you are in a developing stage in your life, celebrate your growth and then choose to keep on growing. Just because you are not where you want to be, doesn’t mean you are an “I am only”.

Here is some food for thought, every expert was first an amateur.

So, even the best musicians probably sounded terrible when they first got started. The best dancer in the world practiced for countless hours despite their natural talent, and gifting. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliners, he talks about all those people we often celebrate usually take over 10,000 hours to perfect their craft. They cultivated their gift, strengthened it, and improved it, and then and only then did it get to the place where it is celebrated.

Why would you hold yourself at a higher standard than that?

It’s not always easy to remember in our busy lives that we really are important parts of society. You are gifted and talented, you just have to take the time to cultivate it. If you don’t like where you are today, or you want to get better, be intentional about creating a space for you to grow and put the time into getting just a little better every day.

What are you willing to do to accomplish your goals this year? Write down where you want to go and then decide how you are going to get there one small step at a time.