I love to play the comparison game.

It's so unhealthy.

I don't even have to have a real reason. This other person could have a talent that I have never been interested in developing, and I can still think why are they so successful and I am so not.

You see sometimes I really think that the best way to discern success is to look at someone else, really anyone else deemed successful and see how I come up short. As you might imagine, I'm behind before I've even begun.

It's been a hard journey defining success for myself. Success as defined by Meriam-Webster is: "the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame" and "the correct or desired result of an attempt." One is externally focused the other is internally focused.

I have a really hard time feeling successful without the external indicators, unfortunately. With my personal blog, creating a really beautiful complex piece of writing and sharing it doesn't feel successful enough. I have to make sure lots of people read it, than they have to comment on it, then they have to share it, and of course if I'm not gaining a couple new followers I'm going nowhere. Or so it seems.

Feeling successful just in the goals I make for myself and having no one recognize them can feel empty, especially in our viral world. Everyone has to see me accomplish my dreams for them to matter; and it I'm not being seen then I'll envy someone who is being seen.

For a long time I thought about writing a blog. I gave myself lots of reasons why I shouldn't or couldn't, but one of my biggest concerns was that no one would read it and the discouragement of that reality would make me stop writing. Yet, now I've been writing and creating content for my blog for over 2 years and thankfully I am not the only one reading it.

Still it's not a well known blog, it's not all over the internet and my followers still haven't hit the triple digits, but I love writing for it and I don't intend to stop. I know I've hit some major writing goals and it's been one of my major motivations to keep writing when I have wanted to give up.

When I don't focus on everyone else's journey and really look at my own life, I can see success. Both internally and externally. For example: I ended up sharing my testimony at my baccalaureate, it was a success because many heard me speak and were moved by it and I represented my college well. It was a personal success because when I came to ENC I was afraid to speak up in class let alone to hundreds of my peers, professors, and their families, but I did it with very minimal shaking.

I've hit many of my personal goals and even been acknowledged and have seen positive results from reaching my goals; but I know that I'll be most successful when I won't have to compare myself to others to form my own baseline of success. I'm successful when I make my dreams come true. I don't even want to be an international pop star and yet sometimes I wonder if I only did x, y, z, I would be that famous, that viral, that loved.

I forget that I once aspired to be a leader, a college grad, a writer, a happily married wife, I am now all those things and more. I am successful on my own terms.

Take it from someone who still has to constantly remind herself to focus on her own goals: I hope you'll remember that success is on your terms, your success is based upon you hitting your goals. It doesn't matter what Becky's doing over in her lane, because that's her life, her journey, her success. So let's go and dream big crazy dreams and be successful and instead of focusing on how much better someone else has it, let's support each other as we all shoot for the stars. The universe is big enough for all of us.