Out of the 7 billion people on this planet, how we can possibly separate ourselves from everybody else? It might seem impossible to try and come up with something original that hasn’t been done before. It requires a lot of creativity as well as trial and error. We have to dig deep to try and find that creativity. If you ask someone else on how to be more original and differentiate yourself, all we’re going to hear is “just be yourself.” How do we know that there isn’t someone out there who is just like us? They may look like us or act like we do or have the same interests as us. To me, just being yourself means only you can determine your thoughts and actions. So make sure that they are yours and no one else’s. You must be yourself, you don’t have any choice. That is not the most important factor in standing out and separating yourself from the crowd. It is about developing a strong purpose and finding ways to be unique in pursuing excellence in that purpose. You should be familiar with the phrase “if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.” So what do you do? You most likely research the most successful person in whatever field you are trying to pursue. It could be one person or two or three, but there is always someone or a group of people who are at the top, the best of the best. You find out the steps they took to become the best at what they do. You decide that you are going to do exactly what they did and that means you will end up just like them.
Hold on a second, isn’t that what everyone is doing? The blueprint is out there and readily available for anyone to us, so why not take advantage of it? You forgot that just because whatever they did worked for them, doesn’t mean it will work for you. They didn’t just follow the exact way that someone before them did it, they used creativity and capitalized on their uniqueness. How do these successful people stand out amongst the masses and rise to a point where they are the most successful in their field? There are hundreds of millions of people who play basketball and do it every single day. How come Lebron James and Michael Jordan were able to distance themselves from everyone else and become the greatest out of all those players? There are of course a multitude of factors that contributed to their success. Yes, they have plenty of natural talent and athleticism. They might have had a few more opportunities when they were younger, who knows. A lot of people are blessed with natural talent and ability but do nothing with it. There is one thing that those guys a long with every other industry leader has done, and it has nothing to do with natural gifts and abilities. The thing they had was courage. More courage than everyone else around them. The courage to stick to their mission and purpose even if it meant missing out on something or made them unpopular amongst their peers. Mission and purpose driven people don’t care about what others think, they don’t care about fitting in. They know that they have a specific purpose and they are determined to fulfill that purpose. Drake had a perfect line that goes well with my last statement. He says, “why worry about fitting in when you’re custom made.” We were not created to fit in the boxes that other people try to shove us into. We were all made unique and with a purpose. If this was false, then everyone would look the exact same and do the exact same things. When you are growing up, the main concern is about fitting in and not trying to draw attention to yourself in a negative way. Your entire self-image is made up of how you are viewed by others. If you are well-liked by your friends/peers than you have all you need. If not, then you start to think something is wrong with you. For some reason, it is almost like we are all conditioned to think this way. We look for ways to fit in, we never embrace our uniqueness and the things that separate us from everyone else. What’s misunderstood is that this is actually how you gain advantages and go places in life. Not focusing on fitting in but honing in on the things that make us custom made.
It is all about self-awareness, but more specifically what makes you unique as an individual. It’s about developing an understanding of how you can leverage your uniqueness so you can get ahead of everyone else. There is something for everyone. Every single person on this Earth has a quality or a skill that is special to them and they excel at better than most or all people. If you just tried to fit in everywhere you go and just do whatever all the other people are doing, you would have no clue about what it is that makes you unique and different. You wouldn’t gain an understanding of your special skills, talents, and qualities that define who you and only you are.
Following the crowd is the easiest path to mediocrity. It is extremely difficult to stand out from the crowd and do what you think is best. It is so hard because you open yourself up to criticism. It can be tough dealing with criticism, but you must learn how to deal with it if success is what you really want. You cannot have a good understanding of your uniqueness if you are only doing what others around you are doing. It truly does require a great deal of courage to do the things that the crowd is not doing. In my opinion, this is the single most important factor that separates the greats from the average, having the strength to be courageous and go against what everyone else is doing. Success is certainly not easy, if it was then everyone would be successful. I believe that nothing is worth having unless you were pushed and challenged to get it. There is no satisfaction in being given something. The internal reward you receive when you see your hard work payoff is greater than anything you could be given.
The route to success is hard and lonely. The route to mediocrity is easy and crowded, you don’t have to do a lot by yourself. People don’t want to take the harder route because they lack the necessary toughness and resolve. Of course, everyone wants success and the things that come along with it. The issue with that is, people would rather take the easy path even though they know the hard path is right way to go. That comes from fearing failure and the judgement and criticism they will receive if they do not succeed. It can be crippling so we take the easy way out and just try to fit in. Fitting in is easy because you don’t even allow yourself the opportunity to be criticized. You don’t have to do too much, nothing out of the ordinary. You actually try hard to be as ordinary as you can when you want to fit in. We don’t chastise people who are just like us, we only go after the ones who are different. It is much easier to find fault in someone or something that is unlike us or the things we are accustomed to. That is because we always seem to initially reject differences and change, even if it’s for the better. We are always taken back and unaccepting of anything different at first. Eventually and over time we come around and get adjusted. Then we become like the thing we thought was so different and crazy. We have all done it. We see something unique or that hasn’t been done before and we immediately criticize. We say it’s stupid or dumb or I would never do that. But then we start to see more of it then we start to get use to it, then we end up liking it. This happens all the time, especially in fashion and music. We wait for the approval of someone that we have defined as “cool” and then act like we were into it all along. This is a classic example of letting fear of judgement stand in your way of either improving your life or trying something new.
It is easy to take the road more traveled because you can blend in and just follow what everyone else is doing. Finding success and becoming the best at something does not happen from following the crowd and trying to copy what is being done or what has been done. You have to be willing to do the things that everyone else us unwilling to do. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Think about your favorite hiking spot for a second. Let’s just say it’s a mountain. It is much easier to climb up that mountain when it is sunny and 79 degrees in June, but when it’s dark and 10 degrees in January it’s not so simple is it? The average people will only climb that mountain in the 79-degree June weather. They would never even consider going up it on a day with bad weather. The successful people will climb that mountain any time, they are completely unbothered if its 10 degrees and in the middle of winter. They have one purpose, one mission, and they don’t care about any obstacles or challenging circumstances. If you want to separate yourself and become the best at something, your actions must be different. You can’t just do what everyone else is doing and expect talent to carry you all the way through. If you want something that most people don’t have, you must be willing to do what most people won’t do. It goes back to courage. You need to become comfortable with being criticized and ridiculed. It may not make you the most popular amongst your peers, but life is not a popularity contest. We live in a results-driven world. Your results and accomplishments will speak for themselves and inspire others to be different and embrace their uniqueness. The path of greatest resistance will make you the strongest and breed the most positive results for you.
The Rolling J
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Wonderful blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Many thanks