On the road to success—whether in your art, your work, or your relationships—you can easily get distracted. You can find yourself drifting off the path if you aren’t careful. And there’s one thing that will pull you off the road faster than anything else.
It’s looking at the progress of others. I’m not talking about seeing what others are doing and getting excited for them or even inspired by them. I’m talking about comparing your work with other people’s.
I imagine it like this: You’re driving down a road and you see a car come up beside you. You can either keep moving at your own pace or you can fixate on that other car. You can even try to speed up to match them. But if you keep focusing on that other car, you’ll find yourself drifting toward it instead of toward your ultimate goal.
You end up slamming into the car and taking both of you out of the game.
It’s so tempting to compare our speeds and successes with others. We can see someone else and assume they’re racing to the same destination as us.
Here’s a clue: None of us are going the same place. You and I can’t be successful at the exact same thing. We can’t have the same destination. We don’t fit.
We each have our own unique success that only we can achieve—as long as we aren’t fixated on our fellow drivers.
Don’t worry about anyone else. Get inspired. Encourage them. But don’t worry if they seem to be going faster than you are. It just doesn’t matter.