It’s easy to fall into the trap of measuring our beginnings against someone else’s endings. And for those who have only just begun learning a skill, starting a business, or launching a workout regimen, it’s a natural reaction to compare our first step to others last. But this is fundamentally unfair to your progress, as well as demotivating.
This makes it easy to believe that success just happens, that one can skip straight from point A to point Z, without the real effort, the blood, sweat, and tears. That’s what it really takes to get there.
Because all we see, when we look at the splashy new digital world, is point Z. What we don’t see is all the Zs that came before. Just as we don’t see all the work that went before the epic NFL quarterback whose win-ratio is splashed across the box score, nor the opera diva whose heartbreaking aria was not so great the first few times she sang. You could even say that this makes success look shorter than it took to get there.
When we compare our early effort to someone else’s who is expertise and spends a lot of time on it, we’re likely to experience discouragement. We might find ourselves looking at the distance between where we are and where someone else has gone. That can lead to losing motivation, believing that you’re not good enough, or that you can’t reach that place. Comparison to others is often impatient. It tempts you to push yourself so quickly to the finish line, matching someone else’s speed, without the foundation that has built them. It can feed impatience, which can then erode your confidence. We may begin to feel less capable, forgetting that progress takes time and that everyone started somewhere.
Not knowing where the road will lead is OK — there’s no universal timeline for success.
But if you feel yourself veering into comparison town, be kind to yourself by setting realistic goals. Break down big objectives into manageable chunks, and reward yourself for the little victories along the way.
Periodically check in on how far you’ve come rather than how far you have to go, perhaps by documenting your progress in a journal or on a tracker.
Others’ successes can inspire and inform us, so use the victory laps of others as a means to celebrate yourself, not undermine your path. Investigate what opportunity led them to where they are now, empathize with their setbacks, and find lessons you can apply to your own journey.
It’s important to recognize that mastery doesn’t happen overnight. So be patient with yourself and trust it’ll happen. Keep cultivating, and you’ll find, over time, that it’s paying amazing dividends. Identify your unique strengths.
No one else has your blend of skills and life experience, whether that’s your parents’ divorce, your gender, your sport (dancing or being 7ft tall), your religious background, your crazy uncles, your merit scholarship, your blindness, or your hearing loss.
Think of J K Rowling whom a dozen publishers rejected before Harry Potter would go on to become a global sensation. Colonel Sanders is another example: he founded KFC at 62, after years of experiencing failure.
It’s a reminder that success is more of a marathon than a sprint.
It is completely natural to look up to those who have reached the point you wish you had. But you are doing yourself a disservice when you compare your first step to their last because everyone who has achieved what you hope to achieve was exactly where you were in their beginnings. Even the greatest expert was once a novice, and even the most successful person failed enough times to fill a volume. Your path is your own, and honoring it is as simple as paying attention to your progress, learning from your setbacks, and finding the patience and persistence to simply keep going, one step at a time.
Celebrate every small step you take, and enjoy the journey while also keeping your eyes forward.
Here is a template for you to use while building a new skill:
