I’m not even really sure I’m equipped to write this post as I often struggle to run my own race. Blame an underlying competitive nature. I love to check out what other people are doing and compare myself with them. That’s all fine and dandy if it turns out you come out on top, but what happens is that you’re not always going to be on top.
And I hate to lose.
How do you run your own race with your eyes gazing longingly off into the distance? To the place where the winners live, when the first place has been won, and you’re still plugging away? That’s hard, I think. Like staying positive when life is shit. Being generous when times are tough. Running your race when others are {even just to you} winning, takes guts.
Yesterday the Voices Top 100 blog competition names were released. It was formerly the Kidspot Top 50. You know the one I was listed in last year… Well my name wasn’t on there. Ouch. My name has pretty much always been on there. Which sounds arrogant, but well, it is what it is.
However, I’d had time to prepare for this. A friend of mine had contacted me when she received her “YAY you’re in” email to ask if I’d received mine too. I hadn’t. Awkward. But still, even though this blog is everything I could dream it to be and more at the moment {both creatively and commercially} I started looking for what I’d done wrong.
QUICK.
Change something.
Make them like me.
I started looking for tips on how to do better in the race. How to win. Or to keep up, at least, or at least be more appealing. I was sad today. Sad to not receive a spot that I sort of thought I would get. Ready to throw out doing things the way that makes me happy. A way I’m proud of doing them, because I wasn’t chosen. In this funk, clouded with disappointment, I found myself flicking through the 25 winners in my category looking for a formula. A secret. A conspiracy, perhaps? Not my finest moment.
I was in the wrong race. That’s not my race. This blog lives here all year round. I write here, share my photos and my stories here all year round. Not just for blog award season. I’ve been the flavour of the month and I’ve been the blog no one visits. On this blog I’ve tried too hard, I’ve tried too little. To get where I am, I’d battled with my competitive self and won. It was time to remember that; I don’t want to be you because I’m me. This blog, and the way I deliver it, is a part of that.
So how do you run your own race when others are winning?
You fess up to being disappointed and congratulate the winners. Take a moment to remember that for some people you are a whole heap of wonderful and that you really never know what’s around the corner. Sure, winning is fun {GREAT!} but that losing has lessons too and this is one of those lessons to learn. And, most of all you remember that no amount of being someone else will ever make you happy.
Suger 
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