Every year for the past few years, I have had the privilege of attending something called the Global Leadership Summit. It’s a fantastic event that it brings together a diverse group of successful people—those from the business and humanitarian sectors as well as inspirational ones from the Christian faith. The Summit teaches leaders ways of shepherding others with fundamentally sound and Biblically wise principles. With speakers like Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell (both former Secretaries of State), to Mark Burnett (TV producer of the Amazing Race and Survivor fame) and Bono, the Summit brings together a diverse group of inspiring and intelligent speakers. It’s quite amazing and extremely rewarding.
I heard a Summit message in 2011 by a really great pastor (Steven Furtick of Elevation Church) in which he said something rather powerful that I have not been able to forget:
“See, one of the reasons why we struggle with insecurity is because we’re comparing our behind-the-scenes to everybody else’s highlight reel.”
Wow. How often do we do this? How many times have we let our small successes be swallowed up in the shadow of someone with more notoriety and exposure? How many times have we been afraid to pursue our dreams because we judge our success by another person’s story? It’s so easy to get discouraged when our hard work is not acknowledged or celebrated like someone else’s. And it feeds our insecurities as we are crippled by the fear of failing or by not living up to what another has achieved. So we don’t even try, and our dreams die. Or we become envious and bitter and drown in our unhappiness.
Take celebrities for example. They have fame and fortune and fans, but we generally only see an idealized snapshot focusing on the highlights of their careers. What we rarely see is the sweat and the pain and struggle they often have gone through to get where they are.
We get discouraged in our journeys because we compare our many acts of hard work with the few highlights of someone else’s success. And in that, we minimize the importance of our work. Comparing ourselves to others is a form of covetousness and envy, which brings nothing but frustration and defeat. We all have important roles we play. If we are not giving them our full attention—if we are not living to our potential because we are contrasting our story with that of another—we devalue our achievements and lose our sense of worth.
If you have a dream, pursue it. Compare your success only to the amount of effort you feed it, not to what some other person has done. Hard work does pay off—sometimes in ways that you weren’t expecting. Big things are comprised of little things. Just as your body is made of many cells, so success is comprised of many (even mini) feats. Your ideas are important and your works matter. Your success is not someone else’s success. Your story is not someone else’s story. And, you are in charge of writing your own story. Create your own highlight reel.
“But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.”—Galatians 6:4
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”—Romans 12:2
“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”—Galatians 1:10
Please share this with others