P E R F E C T I O N.

I mentioned this topic a little in my last post but I wanted to dive deeper into it because it is something that came up in my last meeting with my mentor.

Let’s talk about perfection and comparison, okay?

I admire and sometimes do compare myself to MANY podcast hosts across social media.  Mainly those who are years ahead of me in experience, knowledge, and practice. It gets overwhelming sometimes because I listen to all of these people and I want to be just like them.  But this is different than admiration, something I learned in a podcast I was listening to this morning. Admiration is the concept of you look up to someone for advice and guidance and Comparison is when you at someone who you look up to and you see they are doing something so perfectly and you look at what they have done and you’re like “Crap, my [insert something here] isn’t as good as theirs.” and you beat yourself up and you are nervous to put it out in the world because you are nervous and embarrassed but for me? I have to fight these thoughts and start to steer away from my comparison because 99% of the people who are listening to these podcasts have never heard a motivational podcast before.  Of course, there is that one percent but that literally consists of my mentor and my best friend.

If I zoom out, then I am a 17-year-old with a podcast.  How many 17-year-olds do you see who have a podcast and are living out a dream of theirs, not many right?  I have to keep reminding myself of this and that my podcast is good enough because it is and honestly, it will never be perfect.  Why? Because no one on this Earth is perfect. Nothing is perfect because the people that you see and hear on social media, they have flaws too.

I constantly have to remind myself that the work that I am doing and that I am enough.  It is so hard to stack your progress and work to that of those who are higher up than you and tell yourself that your work is good, heck even enough.  I have to scale back. Somedays where I am more vulnerable and open to the thoughts and feelings, I don’t check social media. This is a way I can focus on what I am putting out and how much I personally like it and the value I know it will bring.

I was reading one of my favorite personal development books to date Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis and coincidently, I read the chapter about how people do not go after their dreams because they are scared of failing.  More specifically, in this chapter, Rachel says “You are going to suck. All beginners do… If you try for a goal, you probably will suck for a minute…but you won’t stay there for long.  You’ll work to get better.” It goes to say that, once again, I am only a 17 year old who had a passion for helping others who decided to start a podcast to do so and on top of going to school 5 days a week, works 6 days a week, and has a life outside of all of this so the beginnings of this podcast will not be like the millionaires and famous podcasters who do this stuff for a living and carve out time during their days to record and they have said the things they say a million times over and they have an entire team of filmers and editors and assistants.

This journey of steering away from perfection is ever going but I am so grateful that I am beginning it now.