I’ve written about business comparison in the past. As business owners we are constantly comparing ourselves to others; we look at their social media feeds and feel envy, we see that they’ve gotten into a new store or launched a new website and the jealousy starts to creep in.
It’s natural to feel this way, sure, but it’s not fun.
I talked about all of this the last time I wrote about comparison but in my last article, I missed a big point. I missed something that honestly I hadn’t yet been thinking about. I missed this:
The goal is always to improve. The comparison we should be doing is with ourselves.
That’s right, compare yourself to yourself.
Compare your business to your business. Compare where you were a year ago, to where you are right now. Where you were last month to where you are now. Where you were yesterday to where you are now.
Think about it, whether you are building your fashion business or growing it, you learn something new in your business practically every day. A new way of thinking or a new way of operating. You learn big things and small things.
And all of this learning means that when you compare your past business self to your current business self, you will see that you have made progress!
Even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
Rather than letting yourself get caught up in what others are doing, accomplishing, winning, and succeeding in, what about if you started writing down all those things about yourself?
And when those comparison-focused feelings start bubbling up (you know, when you open Instagram), take a look at your own accomplishments.
That is so damn powerful.
When you shift from comparing your business to others and start comparing it to your own business, you can see how much you’ve improved. You can see how far you’ve come. You can see what you’ve accomplished.
And I’ll tell you what– that comparison results in a much different feeling. Instead of feeling ashamed, not good enough, behind, and deflated…
you feel excited, impressed, proud, and motivated!
You’re suddenly looking inward instead of outward and realizing that in a small amount of time you’ve managed to do a lot of big things.
And beyond that you feel a confidence that impresses upon you all that you’re capable of, causing you to get out there and keep moving, keep doing, keep going, because you know that you’re capable of so much more.
You know that there’s so much more inside that you’re ready and excited to take on. And what an incredible feeling that is!
Lots of love and encouragement,
