On comparing yourself to others

I’ve been engaging with Seth Godin’s work a lot recently. I’ve been listening to his podcast. I just read his latest book (The Practice). And I've been watching his lecture series on learning.

And sometimes I go down the tunnel of comparing my body of work to his, and my career to his. I’ve written seven books. But he’s written twenty.

I’ve been writing my blog weekly or fortnightly for over 15 years. Over 500 blogs. Pretty impressive. Except he writes his daily and has done over 7,000. I could go on.

This thinking is obviously not that helpful. And I imagine you have some version of this somewhere in your life.

Here’s a couple of ideas that might help.

My friend Christina Guidotti says don’t look sideways. That’s it. Just don’t do it. When she notices herself comparing, she just stops. She doesn’t engage with those thoughts, and doesn’t give them any oxygen. Very powerful.

Derek Sivers says think of yourself as a bronze medallist, not a silver medallist. Bronze medallists as a rule are happier than silver medallists. Bronze medallists are grateful they got a medal at all. Silver medallists are disappointed they didn’t get gold.

In any field or ever endeavour there will be people who on any particular spectrum will be ahead of you. That’s a given. The trick is to use that as inspiration, not invalidation.