So often we do things so that we can be the best at something, just for the sake of being the best, but very soon on we lose our motivation and commitment to the cause, finding it very boring. Why do we reach for these goals of being the best at something? So we can think of ourselves as better than other people? So we can think we are a “good” or “smart” person? These lofty ideas can really be thought of elements of our personality. No matter what you do, whenever you compare yourself to someone else you are always afflicted with personality. The personality builds itself on experience relative to the world. You know yourself relative to the world and therefore if you can only know yourself in reference to something you are limiting yourself. You are limiting yourself because you can only grow as big as the person or thing you are comparing yourself to and that is a limiting mind frame that you are holding. Sometimes you reach that goal and you sit around feeling good about yourself until you realize that there is someone else bigger or better and so now you compete with them. Forever competition. Never satisfaction.

By only trying to be the best, not only are you trying to climb to the top of an unreachable mountain, you are stealing the joy from your experience. To truly excel you have to do something, or look at something, in a way that has you do it for the joy of doing it. For instance, if you are doing something just to get good grades or you are working just so you can get money, you are naturally sucking the joy from what you are doing. It is a limited reference frame and won’t inspire you beyond what you are doing, so then why do it?

It is important to look at the thing you are doing from different angles and different perspectives. A good way of doing this is through gratitude for the opportunity to be following this path, for what it involves and for what got you there. You think that what you are doing isn’t relevant now but how do you know in the future it won’t be one of the most relevant things that you did. Find a way to identify with what you are doing. Recontextualize it. What is the relevance of what you are doing to the world? To the rest of your life? Find a way that it is relevant to you so that you can connect with it as something outside of the moment – rather than as a means to an end.

How could anyone be inspired by reaching the end?

It is our reference points that bring us down. I had a friend who grew up in the fields of Mexico. He didn’t know what rich and poor was because there was no one around to compare himself to, so in those days he was blissfully happy. But then he came to America and he saw the difference of his situation, to all the wealth around and how different he was from them. With this new reference frame he felt limited and sad. One day he realized something that lead him to reframe his situation. Instead of focusing on himself in relation to the people above him, he focused himself to his dream which in his mind was well beyond and much more relevant to what he wanted for himself.

In this day and age people will often change with the wind their career, their directions and their idea on who they think they should be and what they should be doing. People soon become lost in the hurricane of choices trying to grab on to as many things as they can whilst they find themselves swirling around in the frenetic digital trends of the day. We often become fixated on these ideas like a rabbit in headlights, copying paths that people have already begun to cut, leaving us more often than not overwhelmed and stuck in the rut. People typically prefer to walk a well-worn road where they will find safety and certainty but they may not find purpose. This may very well be because we are travelling the road well travelled rather than the world less travelled.

So spend the time to work out your big dream. Plan the path ahead. The only reason we choose to focus on other things and people is because we don’t take the time or don’t know what dream we want for ourselves. When you try to reach another persons dream you won’t have the same passion about it; to reach where they did. You won’t be able to muster the same level of enthusiasm needed to go the long haul, and thus everything you do becomes boring and tedious. If you want adventure, if you want excitement, if you want inspiration you may need to do something inspired. If anybody could have done it, it most probably would have been done. Some times all that takes though is simply getting down to business on your dream and believing in it and yourself.

Take the time to work out what your dream is. If you don’t know yet, then find gratitude for the things that you are doing, because in positivity and your higher frames of mind you are opening your frame of reference to a place of greater possibility and opportunity than if you have a closed and resistant mind. Give thanks for the dreams that you do have even if they are modeled after someone else’s and be open and aware for the moment when you realize what you really want to do. So dream big and get exited about your dream. Because when you find your dream, when you find your purpose you wont be doing things for a limited reason, a momentary accolade, a meaningless end, you will be doing things for the joy of the rest of your life.