I just cooked up a quinoa breadstick recipe. I have been staying away from cheese, but added it because the recipe called for it. My youngest son, Seamus, and I were calling in Quin-cheesy-roni because we added veggie pepperoni.

It was okay.  I’d need to tweak it.

I topped it with hot peppers and it was very Jennylicious then.  I love cooking and finding new recipes. I love learning.  I love newness.  I love expansion.  I love ideas, creativity, and possibilities.  I will be growing in some way every day of my life.  It’s how I want to live and how I see living to my fullest potential.

Now did this specific recipe work for me?  Not really.  I look at it as a metaphor for life.  Have you ever followed a recipe to a tee and it didn’t turn out right?  Like the Pinterest fails that make you feel so not crafty or Martha-ish, as in Martha Stewart, the Queen of home living type world.  I’ll go for the Goddess of being me instead, cause that I can do.  In truth, you never know what brand people use in their recipes and even if you do, altitude, temperature, and other factors come into play.  Just like in life.  You can follow someone else’s path to a tee and NEVER have the same journey.  You can read all the same books, go to the same training, school, workshops, or certifications and it would be impossible to have the same outcome. Your cake ain’t ever gonna look or taste like anyone else’s.  And thank God.  That would be so boring.

In my twenties, I was always comparing my cake-making skills literally and figuratively.  Even at this wise old age, I still get tripped up sometimes, especially in new surrounding, classes, or especially as I uplevel from a big fish in a tiny pond to a small fish in a big pond.  It’s like I’ll advise peeps in my upcoming book and what I spoke about relating to reinvention last year at a business event.  Take in your new surroundings and observe what you see others doing, how they are succeeding, what they’re good at, and what you want to strive towards.  You can look at that corner office and how great their view is and how amazing they are at their job…but then remember you are running your own race.  Stay in your own lane or you will trip up.

You have no idea how much hard work went into their cake.  They may have tried to perfect that recipe for ten years, toiling away at it every single day.  They may have “lucked” out with being handing the perfect recipe from their family.  They may have magic golden pans, a hook up for the good flour, a technique only told to certain people once their cake skills are at a certain level.  So should you give up making cakes cause what’s the use?  Their cake will always be better  That is a copout, an excuse, it’s giving up and you will create the life you don’t want that way.

If instead you don’t worry about other people’s cake or quinoa crusty thing and create a brand new recipe.  Maybe your cake will have quinoa in it and it will be delicious and healthy.  Maybe you will make a new cake every day.  You get to create the perfect recipe for your life.  What do you want to create?  How much fun can you have with your own recipe?  How delicious will your life get?

Start cookin’ now!