One very important part of your (and my) daily development training program is to monitor our own progress.

If this is not a part of your plan, the default mode is that you will find ourselves comparing your development with that of someone else.

The Bad News
Let’s get the bad news out of the way

If you are not checking up on yourself from time to time it won’t be long before you will be unconsciously comparing yourself with your favorite motivational speaker, or athlete, blogger, marketer or even a friend or family member. This is the default mode.

Perhaps you were brought up with the idea that you always had to strive to become better than, or at least as good as the class champion, a fellow team member or a sibling. If you missed this pressure altogether while growing up you are blessed indeed!

The pressure in society, with all of the media around us, is always striving to push us into comparing ourselves in some area of our lives with a superstar, or at least with a perceived superstar.

The other default mode is even worse – you may stagnate and become complacent (if you do not actively monitor your own progress).

The Good News:
To grow in your personal development is not about trying to be better than someone else. Monitoring your own development is all about YOU being better today than you were yesterday.

You were not called to be someone else, even though you may be involved in a similar niche in life than they are.

We can certainly learn from others (and we need to). We can learn from their example and when their example is real, we can learn from their teachings.

BUT: personal development is personal. That means it is yours.

How are you progressing towards achieving your why? Are you one step closer today than you were yesterday? That’s the real question.

You need to become more influenced by your own dreams, than by the example of others. Yes the example of others can motivate and inspire, but the passion that will drive you to press forward on YOUR journey, is YOUR why, YOUR dreams and YOUR goals.

You are unique! You and only you can add YOUR God designed value to this world.