We all love stories.
I love stories. You love stories. Stories are gripping. Powerful. And at their very best, they give us something to emotionally connect with.
But there’s something different about hearing too many people talk about their road to success. It actually makes me anxious. Which, I guess, isn’t the way that it’s supposed to be at all. The more I keep hearing people’s inspirational rise to fame the less I feel motivated. I actually just feel…
Anxious.
To me, it kinda feels like Instagram. My fave social media to bitch about. And that’s for a reason. It’s because we’re naturally prone to self-comparisons. I don’t want to do it and most of the time I don’t do it. But when you’re surrounded by other people’s stories, photos, engagements, whatever for long enough it’ll start to creep in.
The problem is, it’s so easy to attach ourselves to people’s success and imagine ourselves repeating it. Lisa Nichols said in her interview with Lewis Howes like 87,000 years ago (2016), that she purposefully doesn’t tell people the name of the convention where she got her start because she knows people will try to do the same thing.
She knows it won’t work. People will miss the whole effing point.
And if you think about it, doesn’t that make sense? Doesn’t it make sense that we’re going to try and repeat the success of other people? To follow in their footsteps?
I think the best life or career advice I’ve ever learned has been more general. Ways to get through the day-to-day stuff. Mindset shifts. Emotional resiliency. That stuff. Because every time I’ve tried to repeat someone’s exact steps, it has blown up in my face.
Those steps are another person’s journey. They are not mine and they are under a vastly different set of circumstances. I can’t compete with those circumstances. And I shouldn’t be competing with them. Because that’s useless.
I can only compete with my own.
—
This post was previously published on Medium and is republished here with permission from the author.
—
◊ ◊
Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
◊ ◊
Talk to you soon.
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Unsplash