My social media highlights are fake

And they're also real. Imposter syndrome is a real thing and the comparison trap can snag even the most confident person. It's important to remember that. However, the pictures and videos I share of my day really did happen. Yesterday, I was watching my Instagram stories to see what I had posted about and if there was something I wanted to share that I hadn't yet, or a place where I had told the beginning of the story but not the rest. As I was watching, I was caught up in the dreamyness of kids snuggling, my ginger cows being caught in the sunrise, beautiful bread being placed on the counter, and I was smiling.

My immediate thought was, "I need to post a story about not comparing your worst times to my best times," or "I should mention how I didn't post a picture of the mess in the living room or how much laundry is on the rocking chair in my bedroom."

My second thought, though, was "Sarah, these things really did happen and look like this today. This is your gratitude list for the day."

Yes, when you look at other people's lives, be it how their house looks when they're expecting company, or the way their kitchen looks on Instagram while they're preparing a dish (I mean, who really rolls out dough in a 2'x2' area with flower petals strewn about the counter?!), we need to keep perspective that this is a presentation, not daily life. People use filters on their pictures or present things as better than they really are. But when I look at my own, I have permission to smile and be happy about those things.

If you and I were on a mindset coaching call, we would start with a gratitude list. To a person, my clients start by only listing things they had worked really hard on, were completed, and were close enough to perfect that they could count it as success without picking it apart on how it could have gone better. It takes work and several sessions of me pointing it out to get to the place where each woman can "count" the little glimmers in her life that either weren't the product of some great effort, or even at times the result of anything she did at all! When I look at my cows in the field in the morning and their red fur is ablaze with the morning sun, I feel a rush of gratitude. I had zero to do with that occurrence, I suppose other than owning the cow to begin with and being outside when the sun cleared the top of the house and shined on the pasture, yet I still get to feel grateful.

When I look at pictures of bread I've made, I get to be pleased with the product of my hard work without letting the reality of dirty dishes behind me steal my joy at all.

What would be on your highlight reel today? What would you "post" in your mind as "just the good parts" of the day? You get to watch that and smile. You get to watch that highlight reel without picking it apart with thoughts of, "well, the part you don't see is _____," or "It wasn't all that good, right after that the kids broke out in a

massive WWF cage fighting match."

View other people's highlight reel as them putting their best foot (or filtered face) forward, but allow you to view your own as your gratitude list without any string attached.

Today, on my 46th birthday, my goal is to look back lovingly on the highlights and smile with immense gratitude.

What's on your highlight reel today?