This post is a part of the With Love series.

You are unique. Unique in your own special way. And no one can be like you.

But too often, our uniqueness leads to conflict between us and others. Each one of us wants to show our true potential and put our stamp down on the world around us. But your stamp is not necessarily the same as someone else’s.

However, we function at our optimum best when we portray the true person inside of us. This gives us the most confidence and makes us feel most at home with our actions. When you show who you really are, you are most creative and most alive, and you produce your best work.

So when someone tries to put me down when I show my true self, I look at myself in the mirror and say, “I love myself. I am beautiful and talented and it is safe to let others see the true me!”

• I know wat is feels like to be unique
• I know how to be unique
• I know it is possible for me to be unique

You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

~ Christopher Robin

Compare yourself only to yourself

Comparison is our minds way of validating our actions. We compare what we have done to someone else’s actions and try to do a better job. But since we are so unique, this can have disastrous consequences. You don’t have the skillset of that other person, and neither should you strive to have it. You are unique in your own right.

Rather compare yourself to how you were at a previous stage in your life. Compare your productivity to what it was yesterday, and try to improve on what YOU have done – not others. In this way, you not only approve of what you have done in the past by doing it again, you also strive to improve on it and create a better you!

Illustration: From the ugly duckling story… A babyswan (they don’t look like swans) ducks and watching a beautiful swan swimming in a lake and other animals are watching from the woods…should there be a woman with a granddaughter here showing the story?

Checklist for today

• Don’t compare yourself to others.
• When you envy the accomplishments of another, realize that you don’t have to achieve those same things to be adequate.
• You are unique just the way you are. Strive to find your uniqueness and try to put down your unique stamp on society around you.
• Compare yourself only to a previous version of yourself!