Stop Judging Yourself By the Standards of Others and Start Finding Your Success
By Christine OKelly | September 15, 2010
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If you're reading this blog post, then you may be a blogger or someone who is thinking about starting a business or in a transitional stage in your business and looking for answers. In that case, you're probably reading the material of many other bloggers that have sold millions of dollars worth of products or have rabid blog fans or a seemingly unreachable number of newsletter subscribers or blog followers.
If you're like many people I speak with on a weekly basis, you may be depressed and in a panic to figure out how on earth you could ever catch up to so-and-so's number of mailing list subscribers, or have x number of blog posts per week like [insert name] blogger, or gain the rankings of xyz competitor, or manage to fit into one day all of the social networking and content production and video production that gurus A, B, and C say is required.
Stop. This kind of chaos and pressure is enough to squash your confidence and perhaps destroy your chances of creating your success.
I'm not saying that it's not smart to strive for this level of visibility in social media — hear me out.
I also work with a lot of extremely successful people that many of you have never heard of.They aren't on social networks. They aren't high profile bloggers. They aren't A-List celebrities. They are smart, savvy, business owners, quietly earning hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.
Being a social media/blogging icon is not the measure of success for every person or every business. These are just the visible, sexy, popular people — and the way they are achieving their success is not the only path to success.
There is a difference between building a solid, successful business and being a highly visible public figure or sales person. If building a social presence is your goal, then you can follow a path to get to that A-List status with enough persistence. It's not impossible. But the danger may be in setting off in that direction blindly when it's not the direction that you need to go to achieve your true measure of success.
If you are going to compare yourself to others to set your success goals, then be certain that you are comparing yourself to the right people.
I recently listened to an audio book called "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don't" by Jim Collins. I highly recommend this book to anyone building a business. After studying 15 different companies that made the leaps from good to great, he found something very interesting about the people running those companies. The people running the great companies were often quiet (not to be mistaken for timid), not particularly flashy, modest, realists, and strategic thinkers.
My fear is that people look to marketing gurus to learn marketing — but they then use the same tactics that name brand marketers use to promote themselves. They may create the same measurements of success for themselves that they believe name brand marketers measure themselves against.
My fear is that people will create only a façade — an empty house of cards without any substantial foundation beneath it. I have people come to me that know they want "5 blog posts a week" and "to have a presence on Twitter and Facebook," but they have given little or no thought at all to the actual messages that will be conveyed through these communication tools. They've had designers create the templates and are ready to fill them up because that is what they feel they are "supposed" to do — but are more interested in the fact that there is noise on the communication tools than the message being communicated. Rather, find the substance, and then as it overflows, decide on the right vehicles to share that information.
My fear is that people will try to make up for in marketing and promotion and tactics what is lacking in business substance — because that is all they "see" is the marketing — not what goes on behind the scenes. If you're the sole business owner or a business owner in a small company, you should be spending a great deal of time working on your business rather than just promoting it. No amount of promotion will make up for a business that is empty or lacking at the core.
My fear is that people will engage in marketing tactics for marketing's sake and never ask themselves the most important questions:
- How can I better serve my clients?
- How can I create the most impact in the lives of those I serve?
- How can I deepen the benefits that I provide to my target market?
- What is the most effective way to introduce myself to the people who could benefit from my products and services?
And only then ask…
- What tools are available to accomplish these goals?
I believe that the process of finding these answers comes from a place deep within yourself. It comes from listening more than talking to those that you serve to truly "hear" the needs that underlay their own challenges, dreams, and goals.
A Challenge: Create an Uncomfortable Span of Silent Time To Look Inside Yourself
Five years ago, I was in a sink or swim situation in my life. There was no time to waste — I needed to figure out exactly how to create a viable business immediately. I put myself on a strict information diet and that, I believe, made all the difference.
What is an information diet?
An information diet is the process of being highly selective about the information that you put into your mind. On an information diet, you want only high quality, high value information and no junk. Just as junk food can make your body fat and bloated, allowing too much of "just any kind" of information can do the same. Oftentimes, the messages filling your mind are competing and contradictory; make it difficult to make choices and decisions. Other times, the messages aren't focused on the critical task(s) you are working on at the movement, taking essential focus away from those tasks and diluting that focus out to things that won't help you achieve your goal.
The other critical part of an information diet is silence. Before I went on my information diet, I had to have the TV on in the background as I made dinner or fell asleep. I had to have the radio on in the car. I had to have a steady stream of someone else's messaging fed into my mind so that I could avoid my own thoughts.
When I turned off the noise and faced long periods of silence, I was confronted with my own thoughts… and it wasn't always fun.
And in this challenge lies the discovery I hope you'll make about your business.
I challenge you to make uncomfortably long blocks of time in your life silent. You don't have to make more time — they are already there. It may be while you're cooking dinner or falling asleep or driving your kids to school and back.
If you've ever had an epiphany in the shower, you might understand the magic that can happen in even a short period of silence. It was during a no-radio drive to pick my kids up from school that I had the epiphany that would change the direction of my business forever and be the lynchpin of my success. Had I instead spent that time comparing myself to my competitors or blindly following the advice of marketers by trying to make up for in promotion what was lacking in substance, that revelation may have never happened.
By "silence" I don’t mean turning off the TV or radio and still reading and talking to people on Twitter. I mean significant periods of time where you aren't reading or chatting or in any way allowing the influence of others into your mind.
What I hope that you will discover is a gift that no one can give you but yourself — the gift to uncover the right path for your business and your customers. The gift of uncovering what you know to be effective and logical.
There exists a very perceptive, aware, and intelligent authority inside of you that knows exactly what needs to be done next — or at least which questions to ponder further to reach that conclusion. All you need to do is make the time to listen.
Topics: Business Development |
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Christine - although I’m certainly not a “self made chick” I am a self made man. I don’t restrict my information diet to any particular group or sex as I feel I can learn from all different types of people. I aways enjoy your postings and thank you for sharing your experience and expertise. I’m not one of those “strange people” that thrive on solitude, yoga or self hypnosis but do find I get more inspiration and fresh ideas when I take the time to relax, sit on the beach or swing in the hammock. It’s as if your brain has suddenly opened up like a sponge to soak up new thoughts and ideas. It’s almost a shame that these “thought vacations” have to come to an end. Keep up the good work!
I love the term “thought vacation”– that is wonderful! I totally agree about not restricting your information diet to only one particular thing. In fact, doing that could be harmful! In one of Dan Kennedy’s “No B.S.” books he used a term “marketing incest” to describe a phenomenon of not allowing enough different types of ideas to flow in.
He said “It’s probably better to know a great deal about one, two, or several things than a tiny bit about everything. Specialization almost always adds value. And it can be used to limit information flow. / However too narrow of a focus becomes myopia. If you exclude too much information and input, you rob your mind of the material needed fro breakthrough ideas. Most people in a particular industry are so myopic they start committing what I call “marketing incest” — with the same result as real incest after just a few generation, every’s stupid. People in “x” business look at what everyone else in “x” business is doing, they go to association meetings together, read the same trade journals, and copy from each other. Getting outside the box is important.”
(Dan Kennedy is amazing - I absolutely recommend any of his books!!)
Thanks John - I always enjoy your comments!
Great post. I have many small business colleagues that try to “do-big” but they are small.
I always recommend finding your own voice and then shout with it.
Recently, I had a conversation about a speaker who’s often at industry conferences touting the best ways to do things. A person I was with lamented that he did not have the staff to do what they were doing.
Since the company was publicly traded, I showed him that the company had not made money in 4 years. Despite getting a lot of glory, this company was failing financially.
Just like finding your own voice, you have to choose your own yard stick and measure yourself against it and not what others are doing.
I love this story Jeff! There really can be such a big difference between what “appears” to be working and what is actually working. Some of the most successful get no fanfare at all and yet have beautiful systems that are extremely profitable. “Choose your own yardstick,” that’s a great quote!
Thank you for another valuable post, Christine.
I’m making the switch from part time web designer to full time freelance content writer. As a web designer I was spread too thin. I welcome a somewhat more tightly focused area of service.
Your suggestion to focus on serving clients better really hit home. Like other freelancers, I’m bombarded with distractions as I move to a new office, try to perfect my sales technique, and deal with home and family issues.
Thanks for reminding me to keep my focus where it does the most good - helping my clients.
It sounds like you’ve got a lot going on Bonny! Those can be such vulnerable times because we don’t have enough time to reflect and think. It sounds like you’ve got the right plan of action — focus on how to best serve your customer’s needs and you’ll find the most important things to focus on in the short burst of time you have during this busy transitional period. Hope your move goes smoothly!
Christine, your posts always inspire me!
I especially love your thought on the ‘information diet’. What a simple concept, but you are absolutely right! Once you clear you mind from all the distracting, meaningless info then you can truly focus on digesting the material that really matters.
I’m glad you found this useful Megan! It certainly worked for me. In the past people really had to actively seek out information. Today, there is just SO much information out there that it actually takes effort to try to keep the info that comes into your mind focused. Thanks Megan!
Thanks for sharing this! It came at the right time for me!
Shay - I just love your tagline “Say Buh-Bye To Mediocre and Hello To Magic” - Great stuff!!!
I have been absent for some time, but now I remember why I used to love this blog. Thank you, I’ll try and check back more often. How frequently you update your website?
[…] Let yourself be free. Don’t allow yourself to judge your work. After all, there’s no way to fail and no right way to make art. Just draw, paint or sculpt until your heart’s content. […]
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alfies