Recently, one of our Thrive Members courageously posted in our private Facebook group that she was both inspired and saddened by the financial successes that some of our members had just posted about.
She wrote: “Why not me? What’s wrong with me?”
Have you ever seen other people’s financial success and asked yourself these questions?
If so, you’re not alone.
No matter how successful you are, there will always be others who are more successful. And when you compare yourself to them, it’s painful.
But you don’t know the Full Story…
In the comments below her post, one Thrive Member shared:
“Thank you for sharing and being vulnerable! This was the first time I have really openly shared a financial success and in the 7 years I've been self employed, I felt the same way, "why not me? What's wrong with me?" It has taken a lot of soul searching and exploration, lots of professional development and coaching to get me, first, in the right mindset and energy wavelength, and second, teach me the strategies I was missing.”
When you see other people’s successes and compare them to your struggles, it’s SO easy to make up that these other people never struggle and they have it so easy. But everyone struggles at times, including me and Sharla.
We’ve grown through our tougher times, and while they were very uncomfortable, we would not trade them for the world, as they’ve made us who we are today.
Instead, we recommend you ask yourself, “How is my struggle making me stronger, wiser and more compassionate?”
Can you have compassion for yourself?
Our member who posted about her jealousy went on to share that she had been grieving the loss of her mother for the last 3 months...
And so I commented, “There is a time to crawl up in your shell, do your healing work, and slowly move your business along like a tortoise. And there is a time to sprint in your business and create HUGE momentum in a short period of time, like a hare.
The problem is that many people tell themselves they should be a hare when everything inside of you is telling you to be a tortoise. Losing your mother is a BIG deal and it’s important to give yourself time to heal so that when you do move back into “hare mode” you have been transformed by this event and have a deeper well of wisdom, love, compassion and safety to draw from and to give to your clients.
Honor Your Successes (no matter how big or small)
It’s so easy, when you see someone else’s success to feel like your own successes are insignificant in comparison.
Later in the post, she shared that she had three workshops and one speaking gig lined up for the summer.
This is HUGE! These 4 speaking events, when coupled with the templates that we provide in our Six Figure Speaker program, are enough to generate tens of thousands of dollars in new clients.
Can You Turn Your Jealousy into Desire?
When most people are faced with the extremely uncomfortable feeling of jealousy, they try to numb it with food or drugs or work or alcohol. Or they try to talk themselves out of it or try to think spiritual thoughts...
Instead, breathe into it and FEEL it. Feel the power. Feel the desire. Feel the longing. Feel the strength that is inside of you. Feel your desire to have the life you think they have... or to be the person you think they are.
And then, turn that desire into a deeper commitment to fulfilling your deepest commitments. This is a time to ask yourself what are you most committed to? And how important is it to you? And what are you willing to sacrifice for that commitment?
You may find that you want to experience what you think the person you are comparing yourself to is experiencing. Or you might discover that you’re actually not committed to the kind of life that that person has... and that there is a deeper truth to what you want.
For example, we have friends who are making $5 million, $10 million, $20 million per year... when we compare ourselves to them, we can start to feel bad about not being there yet.
But when we get really honest with ourselves (and remember that our boys are almost 4 and almost 7), what we want more than a HUGE amount of money is the freedom to vacation on houseboats, and ride ATV’s, and go swimming, and sit courtside at the NBA finals. We want afternoons with our kids instead of shipping them off with nannies. We want to have NO REGRETS and want to fully enjoy this time... rather than storing away millions of dollars to spend after our kids are teenagers and want to have nothing to do with us because we were not present for their lives.
My friend, Peter Sol, recently passed away. He posted this on Facebook, about two weeks before he passed:
“The most dangerous risk of all- Spending your life not doing what you want on the bet that you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”
So I have to ask you…
What would you do with your life if you never compared your struggle to someone else’s success ever again?
