How would you feel if you had made a couple of deals involving at least a couple million dollars? I’m guessing you’d probably feel pretty good. I know I would. However, a woman I spoke to the other day did not feel good or the least bit positive.

She felt like crap. She was upset by her lack of progress and was beating herself up about it. She wasn’t making the sales and that she wanted to and in her eyes, she wasn’t at the level of others around her. It was significantly impacting her. She was frozen when it came to making cold calls that would help to generate new leads for her business.

I was curious to know more about one guy in particular that she was comparing herself to, and who had been doing incredibly well in his business.

Me: How long has he been in business?

Her: Three years.

Me: How long have you been working your business?

Her: One month.

As soon as she said this, and heard the words out loud, she realized how silly it sounded. Yet until that moment, she really, truly believed she was failing in her business. And this after one month where she had already closed a couple of significant deals.

I’m sure we can all relate to her experience in some way. We see someone else rocking it in life, their career or their business and we look at our lives, careers and businesses and wonder why the heck we aren’t seeing the results that they are. We beat ourselves up and the little voice inside our head starts yipping. And not in a good way.

Do any of these sound familiar?

  • I must be doing something wrong.
  • I’m not good enough.
  • I’m lazy.
  • I’m stupid.

We conveniently forget everything that we’ve accomplished and focus only on the things that apparently prove what failures we are.

This is poison. It seeps from our minds into our actions. We achieve what we believe. If we believe we’re pieces of crap, we’ll behave in a way that proves this and we’ll end up getting what we believe we deserve. Our beliefs manifest in our words, our actions, our tone of voice. They lead us to get a sick feeling in the pit of our stomachs. To start clicking through the part-time job postings when we should be making client or prospecting calls that will help our business thrive. They keep us from doing the most important things that will help us to achieve what we most want.

Here are the critical elements for you to remember.

You have no idea what the other person has been doing. You have no idea how much they have hustled to get where they are now. You don’t know how much work they needed to do to create a winning mindset.

If you’re like most everyone else, there will always be someone who is more successful than you. There will always be someone who is less successful than you. And there is someone right now who is looking at what you have achieved wondering why they haven’t yet done what you have. Really.

It can help to remember that everyone feels like they aren’t good enough from time to time.

It’s completely and absolutely in your best interest to change your mindset. Immediately. To believe inside and out that you can do this. That you are doing the right things. That you are making progress. That you are smart.

It takes time and a concerted effort to address this.

The only person you need to compare yourself to is you.

The only person you need to compare yourself to is you.

That’s it. Be better this week than you were last week. Get more uncomfortable today than you were yesterday. Stretch more in this minute than you stretched the last. Focus on each and every win.

Keep a diary or a journal or a white board of all of your successes. All of them. Write all of your wins down and post them where you can see them. Keep them prominent. Honour those wins. Be grateful and thankful for the wins you’ve achieved so far. Review those wins every day. Review them when you notice you’re comparing yourself to others, and smile. You are making things happen for yourself.

And that is a beautiful thing.