Why real joy can be found by staying in your own lane

Today’s episode of the podcast is a solo episode, where I talk about why comparison is the thief of joy and how staying in our own lanes is the key to success. This is something that I have had to learn to focus on over the years, but it has helped me massively! I talk about how to know what your lane is and what it looks like, and when to look at what your competitors are doing and when not to. This episode addresses some of the struggles we all feel and offers some practical ways to overcome those struggles.KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST: Why comparison doesn’t serve you, and is the worst thing you can do Knowing what success looks like to you, and what your goals are The importance of goal setting The ways we can let our ego get in our way Being realistic about what you can achieve How work isn’t everything and rest is essential The importance of celebrating every win, no matter the sizeTHE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE:Keep focussed on your own goals, know what you are working on – and remember, you are a rock star and you have totally got this!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS: Practical ways you can stop the comparison and make sure you stay in your lane The mistakes I made this year, because not setting my goals, resulted in me having no lane Take everything you see with a pinch of salt because it’s never the full picture RESOURCES MENTIONED:Instagram liveMary Hyatt Socials and WebsiteTRANSCRIPTHello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Thank you as always for listening and being in my amazing community. I appreciate you so, so very much because otherwise I'd just be recording these things and putting them out and like into the ether.So I really do appreciate you taking the time. I know your world is busy. And no doubt you are doing something while listening to this, the school run, a walk. I normally listen to stuff when I put my makeup on. Uh, so I do really appreciate you listening and being there. So this week we're going to be talking about staying in our own lanes.This is something that I think has helped me massively and something that I've had to learn to focus on over the years because it's so incredibly easy to get distracted. I can't even speak, get distracted by others, lose focus and become disheartened. So how do we do it? Like. You know, we know the phrase, stay in your own lane.We know what it means. It means focusing on your own stuff and not getting distracted and just keep driving forward. But how do we actually do it when we're in business? Because it's not, it's not a bad thing to know what others are doing. So sometimes it's helpful to have an idea of what a competitor's doing or, you know, they might have an interesting angle on something that you could offer a different angle on, and then that inspires you to do some content.So it's not like I'm saying don't ever look at competitors or people in your world, but how do we make sure that we don't spend way too much time? Now I am going to admit which I'm sure the rest of you can get on to someone's, you know, seeing something of someone's and then clicking through and clicking through and then getting on their website and then looking at this and then seeing this and that.And by the end of like the 10, 15 minutes, I've wind myself up into absolute stupor of like oh man. You know, they're doing everything and look at how they've achieved this and why have I not done that? So we need to make sure that we can focus on our own stuff. So the very first step of staying in your own lane is knowing what that lane is and where that lane is going.Because like you can't just sit and do your own work and focus on your own stuff without actually knowing what that lane looks like, because. How do you know? So for instance, one thing for me is I don't get jealous about people having YouTube channels or YouTube success, because that's not what I do.And therefore that doesn't even bother me. I don't look at it. I think maybe I should be doing YouTube or I should definitely do YouTube. I probably have had numerous different times in the past. God knows how many years, but. But now I know I'm focused enough as to where we're going. Now. It's not to say I won't ever do it.It's not to say that, you know, something might change, but I know that that is not my lane. That's not what I'm focused on. And therefore, I am not going to concern myself too greatly when I see someone having crazy, amazing success over that. So that's the first thing you need to know what that goal is, where you're heading, what you are doing, and what's important to you. Now, you know, and there's probably many podcasts you can go back to listen to.There's definitely goal setting podcasts, but you know, I'm big on this. And I talk about this a lot because it's so very important, but this year. At the beginning of this year, sorry. At the end of last year, I did an awful lot of sessions around helping and coaching people to create their own goals and plans and structure and visions and all of that great stuff.And I love it. I absolutely love it. And I stand by every single word I say about it. However I did it so much for other people that I didn't do it for me. And because obviously while I'm taking these workshops or I'm doing the VIP retreat or whatever it is I'm doing, I'm the one, you know, like creating that space to do the work.So even though there are points where everyone goes quiet and they do a bit of the work of their own goals or their own thinking. And then we all come back together to have conversations about, you know, what they've put and how we can help them and that sort of thing. I can't do that. While in that session, I can't be doing my own stuff.So I kept saying to myself, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And previous years before COVID I went out to Nashville and I did it with the amazing Mary and Michael Hyatt. And. That was brilliant. But this year I was too late. So the event that I normally go to was on the week before we actually ended up being in Nashville.So Mary gave me a workbook to work through and stuff, which I tried to do on my own. It didn't quite work. Anyway, I ended up not doing it. I ended up having no goals for this year. End up having no vision. I end up having no direction. I knew what I needed to achieve in the first few months of this year, which was the brand, the website, moving over to ActiveCampaign, doing all this other stuff.But. I didn't set a goal for me. I didn't have any kind of focus and we got to May. And I literally was like, what, what am I doing? Where are we going? What am I focusing on? And I think it was a huge mistake I made. So I literally sat down on something like, and I joked with everybody like the 6th of May and wrote my year's goals.Um, Actually one of the things I'm doing as I'm recording this, it's the 13th of May. And the next thing I'm going to do today is after I finish my podcast, I'm going to create my vision board because I haven't done one. And, and I think that is huge. So for me, I have noticed a big difference in my focus and my energy and my, I guess, drive because I haven't had my lanes set out from day one and I won't be doing that again.And I have done it now. Make sure I've got everything in place for it. So that is super, super crazy important to have that goal to, and somewhere you're going to understand what your lane looks like. So the next thing, and this is really tricky. Okay. And I can give you a couple of tips of things that I do, but the next thing is to try not to look and compare yourself to others.They say comparison is the fith of joy. Is that what they say? If I just made that up? I think that's what they say. I like the they. I don't know who they are, but anyway. So, and it is comparison is just awful for a business owner. And I have dealt with it many times of myself. I've dealt with it many times of my members of them like coming to a coaching call going "This person they're you know, we started at the same time. And now their business is this and mine isn't and dah dah dah." And it's just the worst thing you can do because it doesn't serve you. It doesn't do anything for you unless you're one of these people that is over competitive, it might drive you a little bit. But the truth is don't believe everything you see, and hear. Now we can make everything look amazing online. Course we can, we know how this looks, we know how it works. We know what an Instagram lifestyle looks like to a normal lifestyle. We totally can make everything look so good, but you don't know the reality behind the tool. So you don't know if someone's just. Like, let's say you are a social media manager and someone's just got an amazing contract with someone that actually they are not, uh, they, that wasn't a family member or someone they knew, or someone says I'm full.I've got no more work. Well, you don't know what they're charging for it. You know, they could be charging half the...