The Nastiest Habit (That We All Have)

On Facebook, everyone’s lives look happy. Including mine! I just went on a cruise–I have an amazing fiance. Whoosh Traffic just had its best day ever and it’s looking like we might hit a million-dollar revenue run rate by the end of the year. I have an awesome team–and yes, I just bought my first house!

So what is there to be sad about?

I don’t know, but I find I get sad anyway sometimes. There doesn’t seem to be a reason for it–it just happens. (Well–I can tell you that it happens more often when I eat bad food and spend too much time at the computer.)

But no one posts about that on Facebook. On Facebook, we all have perfect lives. We only post the good stuff.

I believe there’s a lesson to be learned here. It’s a tough one when everyone on Facebook is bright and cheery and all you want to do is stab something. That’s the worst time to learn it. But here it is anyway: Stop comparing yourself to everyone else.

Do you know that impulse doesn’t go away no matter how wealthy, successful, in love, or otherwise amazing you are? That you still compare yourself to others?

The issue is that Facebook posting (and other “life posting” outlets–even blogging!) tends to happen when we are happiest. Because after all, who wants to be the person on Facebook saying “Last night I cried myself to sleep”, or “Yesterday I was so depressed that I’m glad I don’t own a gun, because I probably wouldn’t be here any more if I did”?

Yeah. Not me! And probably not you either.
You Can’t “Success” Your Way Out

But here’s the thing I had to learn: You can’t “success” your way out of comparing yourself to others. It doesn’t matter how many speaking engagements you get if someone else has one you really covet. (Or even one you didn’t know about, but now covet because that person has it.) It doesn’t matter how many Twitter followers you have if someone else you admire has more (actually, I’m going to go out on a limb here and just say–it doesn’t matter how many Twitter followers you have, period.)

It doesn’t matter how many billions of dollars you have, because it’s likely that someone else still has more billions. And if you haven’t learned this lesson, and you are the richest person in the world, you will still be unhappy.

I was in a mastermind with a bunch of other popular bloggers. And most weeks, I’d hang up the phone and be so upset how one of those bloggers, Pat Flynn, was so successful. Finally I just emailed him and said, “How do you do this?” And I found out he’s a short sleeper–he only sleeps a few hours every night.

“Oh,” I thought. “I like my sleep.” Heck, I sleep 9+ hours every night. I will skip everything else, but my sleep time is sacred. And voila–my insecurities vanished. He’s more successful at blogging than I am not because I am a bad person, but because he has different values than I do. (Or because he’s Superman when it comes to sleep.) Either way–I was no longer sad about my inadequacy when it came to blogging.

Then I went to work for WP Engine. And got to work side by side with Jason Cohen, their CEO, who is also a great blogger. WP Engine is killing it right now. They’re growing faster than my hosting company did. “Damn,” I thought, “I must have really sucked at growing my business.” And the downward spiral arrived, ready for me to step on.

But then I really watched how Jason worked. And I realized I didn’t want that, at all. The guy is so driven that I often see him writing emails in the middle of the night. I’m not sure what sleep schedule he has, but I’d be willing to place bets that it’s worse than Pat Flynn’s. :) And I don’t think Jason is a short sleeper. He’s just motivated.

Source: http://www.erica.biz