Wonderful to see you again, brave-hearted woman!

Hey, today I wanna talk to you about what it means to compare your life with someone else. Welcome to all of those of you who are listening either on Apple or iTunes, well, I guess that is Apple. You're listening on Stitcher or Spotify or Captivate. I'm so glad that you are here. You are my number one priority. That's why I'm doing it. What I'm doing because you are amazing. You have an incredible purpose in your life, and I think at this age, midlife women, we've been through a whole lot of stuff that helps us be the wisest, bravest, most de deep, and rich women on the planet. You have a story to tell. You have a lot to offer, and I'm here to promote you and cheer you on.

Today, that's why I wanna talk to you about this thing called comparison. Comparison is not good for us unless it is that you're only comparing with yourself this time last month, this time last year, because we always want to. Incrementally be getting better. 1% better every day, 37% better by the end of the year. And no, I don't know that math by heart.

I have learned that statistic. But I digress. We wanna keep pushing ourselves, showing up, feeling confident and brave on purpose, with purpose, right? Am I alone or can I get like a big amen? I don't wanna feel embarrassed for showing up, feeling like I'm overweight or I'm under-prepared, or I don't have anything to offer in the conversation. That's not us. We are wise, brave women.

So comparison, there are some dangers in comparison. I wanna talk to you about that today because. Ultimately, there are only two things that can happen when we compare. When you compare yourself with other people, their progress, their life, their purpose, their vision, you're either going to feel hotty because you're coming out looking pretty good, and you're feeling better than. Or you're gonna come out feeling unworthy and unhappy because you are less than others, you're not something enough, you're not wealthy enough or thin enough, or smart enough, or popular enough. You don't have as many likes or followers. All of those things, those people that have accomplished more than us make us feel less than. And so we know that neither extreme is helpful, certainly not feeling hotty and better than, and definitely not feeling less than. So I'm here today to encourage you to run your own race.

And speaking of race, let's confirm. Sitter that metaphor just for a moment, ‘cause I think it's really brilliant and it will help us to get the picture in a race. Runners will tell you that they're often, yes, they're running to win and they're also running against their own best time. As they're running and they're in their lane, the runner knows I shouldn't look over my shoulder to see where the other runner is. It's dangerous to do that because the minute that I look over my shoulder to see where the other runners are, I shift my mindset. I shift from being a winner and running my best race to that negativity. I'm now avoiding being a loser. I'm afraid someone else is catching up with me. I'm afraid someone else is doing better than me. I'm afraid someone else is getting a better time than me, so I'm not trying to win my race. I'm trying to not let you beat me, or I'm trying to avoid being in your shadow.

When we compare ourselves to others, we're doing the same thing, right? We're shifting our mindset from being our best and running our race and being a winner according to us and those that love us. We're no longer trying to be the best version of ourselves. What we're trying to do is we're trying to say, how do I compare? Let me look at you and see what you're accomplishing. How do I measure up to you? I'm just trying to avoid losing. I'm not running my rhythm at my pace. I'm not in my sweet spot. I'm drifting.

So I learned a long time ago with the whole comparison thing. It's a dangerous, slippery slope, isn't it? Because comparisons, well, I'm gonna share with you in just a moment, a few, maybe five reasons why the comparison is not good for you and you need to avoid it. But I learned a long time ago that comparing myself to others just really left me feeling discontent because I was young and I was growing and I found out that, I wasn't near where I wanted to be and when I would compare. Now it's different to be mentored and to emulate or imitate what someone's doing, that's a different relationship. That's a relationship with someone who's intentionally pouring into you. They're coaching you, they're pushing you on. They are here for you. They're not trying to outdo you. They're trying to teach you to outdo yourself, to be better, to grow and develop, and that's awesome. That's what we all want. That's what I do for a living. I am a coach. I wanna coach you if you need some help in an area of building a new vision if you have to reinvent if you're stuck and you can't get motivated if you have lost your mojo, or quite frankly, life has changed and you don't know what it is you're supposed to be doing. You don't have a purpose. And while you do, I wanna tell you, you definitely do. Maybe you just don't know what it is. Maybe you have not unearthed those latter-day gifts. Those midlife gifts that we all have enough fruit to be. Produced in every single season of life. Maybe you don't know what that is for you. I can help you. But I learned that I would scramble to accomplish more and I would strive, oh my goodness. I would strive because I love producing, I love creating. I love something that now exists that didn't exist before my hands touched it. That is how I'm wired and I'm gonna always do that, but I'm gonna do it for me and for my calling before God. I'm not gonna do it to try to outdo somebody else. It's futility. So here are a few dangers of comparing. Are you ready? Are you're gonna wanna get a pencil? And write this down and you can put it on your computer, but I really think you ought to write it down because you'll remember it more if you do.

Big reason number one, don't compare. I just gave it a spoiler alert. Because you'll get depressed. You will find that there's always somebody who's outdoing you. They're better than you. They're stronger, they're wiser, they're further down the road. They've gotten much more progress than you and. The thing is, is that we're watching ultimately the highlight reel of people who are just tearing it up and doing well. And when you only watch the highlight reel of someone else's life, you will get discouraged. You'll feel like a slugger. You're thinking, what am I doing compared to them? And then you're gonna be tempted to start judging yourself. And shaming yourself, and God forbid giving up altogether because you compared yourself. That comparison will just fuel your insecurity. Instead of bolstering your own confidence and self-esteem, you'll be diluting and fueling your own, diluting your confidence in fueling your own insecurity, and just at the end of the day feeling like, oh my goodness, I need to just stop. Who am I? Look at what they're doing. All right, what are you doing? You've turned back. You're, running your race, and then all of a sudden you looked back. Well, if you're a long-distance runner and you looked back and felt the sprinter coming up alongside you, blowing past you, no wonder you feel like a loser. They're not even in the same race. You run your race. There are many different races and many different kinds of runners.

The second reason that comparison is not good for us, no bueno, amiga, is because you'll get competitive and jealous, which turns into toxic motivators. Comparing ourselves to someone else does indeed produce jealousy and it can produce an unhealthy competition. Where now all of a sudden I'm doing something because everyone else is doing it. I'm in the race that I have no business running because. I wanna outshine or I wanna try my hand at, I don't feel called to it. I'm not gifted with it. I'm really setting myself up, aren't I? For more discouragement and it's a distraction from what I am really called to. So if I get jealous and I start entering the race that I have no business being in, now I'm doing something for all the wrong reasons. Plus I no longer can cheer someone else on. I'm no longer suited to be a supporter of someone else. I can't get in their corner and cheer them on and say, keep running. You're doing amazing. ‘Cause I'm turning the green eye of jealousy. Looking at them saying, well, you know, they, they're just copying someone else. Can you hear it? The sour grapes. That's what will start coming. And then now I have a competitive spirit that I'm feeding instead of a supportive, loving spirit. Better to be motivated by God's calling than because of comparison.

Number three, when you compare and if you're doing better, it breeds pride. That's not good. We don't wanna walk around on this planet being puffed up, prideful, arrogant, women. Time is short. There are other women that need our wisdom. There are other women that need our help and our instinct and our intuitiveness to help them, teach them, and push them. It's both of our turn. It's the young generation, but it's still your turn brave-hearted woman. Don't you dare give up? But when you get prideful, now you're looking at what others are doing and you feel a little bit, well, a little bit elevated, a little bit puffed up in the chest and say, what I'm looking pretty doggone good here? That leads to conceit, doesn't it? Then here's the danger with that. We start thinking, I know it all. I got it all together. We lose a little bit of the healthy competitive edge about ourselves. That causes us to keep learning and keep pushing and find our edge and push ourselves past it to keep growing and developing. When we think I got this, we start coasting and we start forgetting what it took to get us to the place that we are. Better to be a humble servant of God that's still hungry and growing and thinking, I haven't arrived yet. I have so much to learn, and there are so many people who can teach me. So when we compare and we find that we're doing a little bit better, be careful that you don't allow it to be pride. Just do you just be you.

And lastly, I would like to say, if you're comparing or if you find that you're doing well, or you find that you have a need to do well, you might be in danger of basing your worth and your value on your performance. This is a performance-oriented position in life where it's like, I'm only loved because of what I can produce. I'm only loved because I'm popular and emulated, and now actually I'm addicted to the approval of others. I need that approval. I need that affirmation. You gotta keep speaking in my life. If I don't get it, I can just plummet to the depths. It's kind of like a seesaw kind of an experience. A lot of up and downs if you're doing and comparing and engaging in life. For the applause instead of just the self-esteem and being a good steward of all that God's given you.

I do believe that productivity and progress equal happiness. I got that from Tony Robbins and when he explained it, I'm like, yeah, I agree with that. God did not create us to sit on a shelf and just be beautiful little trinkets. God created us to continually grow and to move forward and possess territory. Why do you think Jabez prayed that prayer? If you're not familiar, there's a prayer in the Bible that says God, and it was prayed by a man named Jabez and he said, God, put your hand upon me. Increase my territory. Bless me, indeed. Keep me from pain. Actually, His name meant pain. What he was saying to God was, take these labels and these limits off of my life, God, and let me explode. Let me increase. Let me go forward. Let me possess territory. Let me tap my full potential. And that my friend is what I believe our mission on Earth is about, to live our potential and tell others to do the same. And by the way, we only know how to do that. Through Jesus. Amen.

So let me give you a few things. If you find yourself today that you've been comparing, here are some things that you need to work on. Alright, I'm working on 'em. You can work on 'em. We're brave-hearted women. We can do hard things. We are not afraid. Say it again. We are not afraid to do hard things.

So number one, this is the same thing for anything. Be aware that you are comparing. Catch yourself, interrupt yourself. Find out when you feel yourself in your thought life and your mindset. Begin to look over your shoulder to see what someone else's doing, or you're scrolling and you're on Facebook, which by the way, be so very careful about scrolling on Facebook. I love posting and I love commenting here and there, but it's not a big part of my life at all. So by the way, if you're waiting for a heart from me, uh, sorry, I'm probably not gonna give it, not cuz I don't love you. Feel the love, and know that I love you, but I just don't do a lot of scrolling on Facebook. I'm running my race. I'm doing what I need to do. I wanna support you. I wanna show up for you, but I'm not just sitting there checking out what everyone else is doing. So become aware of the fact that you're comparing.

Then when you do find this, find yourself comparing. I want you to interrupt yourself real quick, interrupt yourself real quick, and at that moment craft a positive I am statement. I am enough. I am running my race. I am doing what God has called me to do. I am happy with my progress. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, and I want you to craft those I am. And I want you to say 'em out loud. Get 'em in the airwaves, get outta your head, and get those words. In the airwaves, release that positive energy so that you can begin to draw back to yourself.

The law of attraction says what we put out is what we're gonna come, what's gonna come back into our lives. You don't wanna draw to yourself a lot of naysayers and jealous competitive people. You want true supporters in your camp, right? Amen. You want true cheerleaders as friends in your camp. So do that.

And then the next thing I want you to do is bless others. The minute you find yourself beginning to compare someone you just bless and you say, God bless them. Indeed increase them. God, give them a hundred full God. Keep them in your care. I pray blessings over them and when you pray for other people to be successful and to do well. You are what, as I say, when you reap you sow. Just like I just mentioned, the law of attraction is reaping and sowing. When you do that, you're gonna reap the blessings back into your own life. That's not your only motive. Your motive is to pray for your sisters and your brothers. Pray for your fellow human being to be all that God has created them to be.

Then next, think about accepting yourself, your gifts, and how it is you shine. We don't all shine the same. If you ever look at some of these remote control lights, now they're really super fun. But with a little remote, I can turn it blue, yellow, red tank neon, orange, and green. Everybody shines differently with a different bulb, with a different color, with a different way shine baby the way you are supposed to shine. Light up the world the way you are supposed to light up the world, be you. Amen. It's so cool. It's so awesome when you are unique and you are quirky and you are just simply who God created you to be. That's how I want you to shine. That's how I want you to show up, all right?

Then the next one is progress. I said it a minute ago. That's happiness. When, and I'm not talking about that internal joy that we get from God because that's an ever-binding abiding thing. If I'm flat out on my back in a hospital bed or wherever I am, but to feel satisfied with life, let's say that you're living, you know, your basic life, you're healthy enough, you're active enough, but there may be a sense that if you're not feeling well, your purpose in life is to get healthy. Your purpose in life is to get well, body, soul, and spirit, and you're probably in the fight of a lifetime.

But let's assume that God has blessed you with good health and there's nothing against you. Going against you that says you can't get up in the morning with your morning routine, you can't get up on purpose. You can't get on. There's no reason why you can't be productive. And at the end of the day, I wanna tell you that productivity equals happiness, satisfaction, and contentment that says, wow, I worked hard today. I got some things done. Have you ever cleaned a room and you spent a lot of time in there being productive and you made great progress and you just wanna sit at, even if it's your closet, you're like, I wanna eat dinner in my closet tonight. I do because it's so awesome in here. I wanna live here just at least for a few hours because. It is so clean and it's, what is it doing? It's bringing me peace. It's bringing me joy. It's bringing me contentment.

Conversely, what chaos produces and, and the agitation that clutter brings. So make progress, and push yourself. Come on, nudged yourself. Get outta your comfort zone. When you do that, you activate your brain. You activate your brain in a way that can only be activated when you are in the unfamiliar. All of a sudden it's like learning new things. You know, warning lights going off saying she may be in danger, but. For right now, we're gonna have to learn this. And then the next time you do it go, Oh yeah, and you know what? No, she did this once before. It's okay. We can do this. And by the third time you do it, we're like, Hey, how can we get better? She's out here again. Let's teach her. Let's push her. Let's, let's create a new pathway so she can get here quicker, easier. Do you know? I'm right, okay.

And then finally, just resist perfection. Imperfection is okay. It's art. It's okay. Sometimes as a woman, you'll understand this story or illustration, I'm starting to see a lot of plastic surgery and Botox and fillers for women our age, I'm not against it, but I'm against overdoing it because there's a look that begins to develop and you can line up a whole lot of women, and even today, Some transgender, you can go, Ooh, look there, they all have the same look. See, overdoing it to perfection makes us all look the same. So it's okay. Be artistic, be creative, embrace, and perfection, because that's what makes you a masterpiece.

All right, stay in your lane. Use your gifts. Love your life, and if you don't love your life, Empower yourself to change. Maybe it's time for you to invest in yourself, call me. I'm giving out FREE strategy calls, and you need to get a life coach, someone who will help you know what your purpose is. Set a blueprint for your life. Get your goals together and start making progress on what your life is supposed to be about. And if you know what your life is supposed to be about, but somehow you just don't have the motivation or you don't have the know-how, or you just feel like you can't get out of the rut, you need some help. I'm available this week.

My free gift for you not only is a strategy call if you've never had one with me before, but also I wanna help you build your self-esteem, Ignite Your Confidence and Soar with Self-Esteem by Dawn Damon. My ebook is a free download for you this week.

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All right, everybody, it's great to be with you. This is Dawn Damon, your Braveheart Mentor, leaving you like I always do, a brave-hearted woman. It's time for you to find your vision and live your brave!