Do you ever find yourself in competition with others?
Maybe you compare yourself to people who are ahead of you in their career or in business and you wonder why you’re not there yet.
Maybe you see others living a life that you’re craving as you scroll through Instagram…taking trips, booking clients, making a lot of money, and you secretly wish that was you.
Simply put, that type of comparison is a huge waste of time and energy and will get you nowhere.
Now, I know what you may be thinking (at least if you’ve been in my world over the past few years)….
Didn’t you say that jealousy is a good thing, Emily?
Yes, I did, and I still believe that to be true when you allow it to motivate you and help you get clear on what you want.
And the same thing is true of comparison, but there’s a catch…
Just a few days ago, I had a breakthrough in my own world of comparison, so today, I want to teach you the three ways it can be used for good.
So this lightbulb moment happened when I was riding on my Peloton. As I started to peddle during the warm-up, I noticed the menu bar on the right side of the screen with my stats on it.
I was being compared to everyone else who had taken that class — at the time, about 8000 people — but the stat that stood out to me was the one that showed my best-ever results from a 45-minute class.
My first reaction was “when did I ever achieve that result”?
In fact, that’s my reaction every time I get on the bike.
When I see those “best of” results, I think the same thing: Maybe it was when I first started to do Peloton, and I was more motivated. Or maybe it was when I was biking 4x per week. Or I guess I was in better shape then.
Regardless, I never seemed to beat those stats, and it bothered me. Then I realized something…
I could try to beat them today!
Now you might be thinking that that’s the most obvious thing in the world, but for some reason, I had resigned to the belief (not fact) that I wasn’t going to be able to get back to that place. That it was a fluke that I had reached that amount of output in a 45-minute span.
But on that day, I decided to actually try.
And it worked!
(Go figure, right?)
I actually beat my previous personal best (“PB”) by 13 points!
Why am I sharing this with you today? For three reasons…
1️⃣ Comparison can be used positively when it’s comparing you to you!
In fact, that’s actually the only way it’s not a waste of time and energy. Think about it — even if you compare yourself to someone else in your industry — or in this example, someone else on the bike — it’s not an equal comparison.
In fact, that’s actually the only way it’s not a waste of time and energy. Think about it — even if you compare yourself to someone else in your industry — or in this example, someone else on the bike — it’s not an equal comparison.
You have no idea what’s going on for them behind the scenes, what they had to go through to reach their goals, the help they had along the way, their body type, how much sleep they got the night before…and the list goes on.
Whereas when you compare yourself to yourself and shift your mindset to believe that you are your only competition, you can use that to fuel you to the next level.
And that leads me to my second point….
2️⃣ This is actually an essential practice if you’re looking to continuously replicate previous success and become more self-aware.
For example, I had a conversation with a client, and she was asking me for advice on increasing her sales. She had been at a certain financial level but soon found herself dipping and wanted to figure out why.
So we compared her to herself and I asked her what she had been doing (that she currently wasn’t doing now) back when she was reaching her goals.
Was it money mindset work? Was it outreach to potential clients? Was it Facebook Lives?
We knew that she was capable of reaching the goal, so we were able to use comparison to help her get clear on what actually worked for her.
The same is available for you, and it’s imperative that you become conscious of what’s working so you can replicate it!
3️⃣ And finally, one of the most powerful things you can do to reach the next level is to be your own coach or hire a coach!
And that’s what I was doing in that moment. I was seeing a higher vision for myself and holding myself to a higher standard — and I beat my own record!
If I’m being honest, I didn’t even know I could do it. But I decided to try. What would happen if you did the same?=
Friend, how often are we selling ourselves short. How often are we playing small?
So go ahead — compare away and see what happens.
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