Three monks sat by a lake, deep in meditation.
One stood up and said, ‘I’ve forgotten my mat.’ Stepping onto the waters before him, he walked across the lake to the other side and went into their small hut. When he came back, the second monk said, ‘I just remembered I need to put my clothes out to dry in the sun.’ And he too calmly walked across the water to the other bank and returned a few minutes later the same way.
The third monk was watching them incredulously. Finally, he declared, ‘There’s nothing to it. Watch!’ and rushed to the edge of the lake. No sooner did he put his foot in than he fell into waist-high water.
Determined to prove he was just as good as the other two monks, he waded out and tried again. And again and again.
After watching for a while in silence, one of his fellow monks asked the other, ‘Do you suppose we should tell him where the stepping stones are?’
It’s easy to look at other people and imagine that they are effortlessly succeeding where we are failing. But usually all that’s happening is that they know where the stepping stones are.
And this can be particularly easy to forget when you’re running your own business.
A mixed blessing
The ability to see what hundreds or even thousands of our friends, colleagues and competitors are up to on social media is a mixed blessing.
On the one hand, how amazing is it that we can all be connected in this way? We can learn from each other, share resources, make useful connections and discover opportunities we might never otherwise have known existed.
On the other hand, it’s very easy to set off a bout of comparisonitis, where we start to compare ourselves unfavourably with other people.
Perhaps you see another freelance teacher announcing that they’re fully booked, while you’re struggling to find new clients. Or someone launches a group programme that sells out, while you’re still trying to work out what your offer should be.
Maybe someone seems to have thousands of engaged followers on LinkedIn, while your carefully crafted posts are getting hardly any response. Or they appear to be earning far more money than you, despite having much less experience.
Being inspired by what others are up to is great, and there’s certainly plenty we can learn from people who’ve achieved things we’d like to achieve ourselves.
But when comparing yourself with others leaves you feeling drained, inadequate or resentful, then it’s comparisonitis.
And it can have a real impact on how you run your business.
You might start questioning decisions that previously felt right for you, or convince yourself that you need to be doing whatever someone else is doing.
Perhaps you abandon a perfectly good business idea because someone else appears to be doing something more successful. Or you start trying to copy somebody else’s marketing strategy, even though it doesn’t really suit you or your audience.
Before you know it, you’re making decisions based on what everyone else seems to be achieving, rather than what’s actually right for you and your business.
How to avoid getting drawn into comparisonitis
Perhaps the first thing to say, on a practical level, is that a) these people have probably been through what you’re experiencing themselves, and maybe even still feel that way, and b) you have no way of knowing what the reality of their situation is.
That person who’s apparently booked solid might have spent years building their reputation and developing their audience. Or perhaps they’re working ridiculous hours and would actually love to have fewer clients.
The person who’s just had a successful launch might have tried several times before getting it right, or invested a lot of time and money in making it happen.
And the person who appears to be making a fortune might not be making nearly as much profit as you imagine.
You’re only seeing what they’ve chosen to show you, not necessarily all the work, setbacks and uncertainties behind the scenes.
Remember those stepping stones?
However, ultimately, I think comparisonitis is rarely about what other people are doing or having.
It’s about us.
It comes from our own fear that we’re somehow not good enough, and we’ve simply found a handy person to project this onto.
For many people, it’s a favourite game of their Inner Troll, because it’s really good at taking the insecurities we all have at times and blowing them up really nice and big and shiny.
It encourages us to completely forget our own achievements, skills and experience, and focus only on what we feel we don’t have.
And, of course, there’s always going to be someone out there who seems to be doing better than us in some respect.
Someone with more clients, a bigger audience, a more polished website or a more impressive turnover.
If we’re constantly measuring our own success against other people’s, we’re setting ourselves up to feel inadequate, however well our business is actually doing.
Someone else’s success is not your failure
If you’re aware of getting pulled into the trap of comparisonitis, DO NOT start giving yourself a hard time about what a dreadful person this makes you.
Human beings are hard-wired to compete and compare, and it’s perfectly natural.
That doesn’t mean it’s going to make you happy, though.
So, if you feel comparisonitis creeping up, consciously remind yourself that whatever you think you know about this person and how much better they have things, you actually don’t know.
And, more importantly, their success doesn’t mean there’s less success available for you.
Someone else’s success is not your failure. It really doesn’t work that way.
Then spend some time looking after the part of yourself that’s feeling insecure.
Make a list of everything you’ve got going for you, or ask someone who knows you well if you’re struggling to see it yourself.
Think about the skills and experience you’ve developed, the clients you’ve helped, the things you’ve achieved and the progress you’ve made.
And think about what you actually want from your business.
Because perhaps you don’t want hundreds of clients or a huge online audience. Perhaps you want to work three days a week, earn a comfortable income and have plenty of time for other things in your life.
Or perhaps you do have bigger ambitions, but you’re still in the early stages of building something that someone else has been working on for years.
Either way, it makes much more sense to measure your progress against your own goals and where you were six months or a year ago than against someone else’s carefully curated version of success.
And if you see somebody doing something you’d love to be able to do yourself, perhaps you could ask what you might learn from them.
After all, they may be able to show you where some of those stepping stones are.
Focus on being grateful for who you are, what you’ve achieved and what you have to offer.
You really are unique, and you have your own gifts to bring to the world.
And there’s plenty of room for other people to succeed alongside you.
Want to feel more confident running your business?
If comparing yourself with other freelancers, worrying that you’re not good enough or constantly second-guessing your decisions is getting in the way, I’ve brought together some practical resources to help.
In my Feel more confident running my business Resource Centre, you’ll find articles and videos about managing your Inner Troll, recognising your expertise, overcoming self-doubt and making business decisions with greater confidence.