I Thought I’d Be Farther Along By Now.

Do you wake up feeling as if the day got started without you?

Like you’re already running behind?

Like you might never catch up?

Is the list of all the things you thought you would’ve accomplished by now – but haven’t – growing by the day?

Do you hold a sneaking suspicion that if you stop striving for just one minute – you’re gonna fall so far behind that you’ll never catch up again?

Then you are. Exactly. like. most. of. us.

Whether it’s the house, car, spouse, bank account, vacation, job or something else…. A lot of us run around thinking that we should be farther along by now in life. But our fear of falling behind is actually killing our ability to move forward.

Here’s why.

Falling behind implies that you are comparing yourself to someone or something. That you see your journey down your path as slower than someone else’s journey down their path. It implies that we’re all on the same journey or have the same destination.

Falling behind implies that you have your eyes fixed on someone else’s back, that you’re focused on following their path – rather than your own.

Which is sort of like getting in the car to drive to the grocery store and deciding to follow the car in front of you.

Ridiculous right?

The belief that you should be somewhere other than where you are right now – is not actually going to help you move ahead. In fact, it’s probably going to keep you stuck – maybe even paralyzed right where you are.

It’s also a total energy suck.

Fixating on someone else’s progress literally depletes the amount of energy you have to dedicate to walking your own path. We can’t be focused on someone or something else and still be creating our own forward movement.

And you cannot afford to waste energy. You’ve got shit to do.

As a perpetual sufferer of “I thought I’d be farther along by now,” I know that its not helpful to simply try to ignore what others are doing. Trying not to do something often causes us to do that very thing.

Like when I tell myself to not think about the ice cream in the freezer – its inevitable that I will become obsessed with the ice cream in the freezer.

When your thoughts are fixated on something, its hard to cut them loose. (All I can think about is the ice cream in the freezer.) That is until something else gets even louder and breaks the spell.

So I’m not going to ask you to stop comparing yourself to others.

Instead, I’ll ask you to create a clanging, banging, screaming, all consuming noise from within. To turn the dial until your own path becomes clear and the only thing you can listen to is your own inner guide.

If you then hear the call to be somewhere else, you’ll have the energy, drive and motivation to get there.