Blinders On: The Business of Staying in Your Lane | EP302

Ever found yourself scrolling through social media, feeling increasingly inadequate as you see other entrepreneurs seemingly crushing it while you're struggling with basic tasks? That comparison trap is exactly what we're tackling head-on today.

The concept of "staying in your own lane" might sound simple, but it's a discipline I personally struggle with daily. Throughout this episode, I share my raw experience organizing my first in-person event and how comparison nearly derailed the entire process. When we measure our beginning against someone else's middle, we set ourselves up for unnecessary discouragement.

What makes this comparison particularly toxic is that we're rarely comparing equivalent situations. That entrepreneur with the massive audience? They've been at it for years. The business owner with the seamless systems? They've likely failed their way to that success through countless iterations. As I explain, "Don't compare your chapter two to somebody's chapter twenty" – the numbers might change, but the principle remains the same.

Social media compounds this problem by showing only curated highlight reels. As I describe it, many seemingly successful entrepreneurs are "paddling like absolute lunatics under that still sea of calm." Without seeing the behind-the-scenes reality, we compare our complete picture against someone else's carefully filtered presentation.

The solution? Practical steps to refocus on your journey: limit social media consumption, unfollow those who trigger comparison, measure progress against your starting point, celebrate small wins, and create plans aligned with your unique vision. Your business journey is yours alone – embrace it rather than trying to recreate someone else's path.

Take a moment to reflect on your recent wins, and if you're feeling brave, share them with me on LinkedIn or in my Facebook group. Your progress deserves celebration, no matter how small it might seem compared to others.

Access the Class HERE

www.donnaeade.com

Buzzsprout - Your go to Podcast Host!
Start for FREE

All Your Business Needs Under One Roof
You need a website, a CRM, an EMS, sales funnels, a course platform and more it's all in FEA Create

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 1:47 Welcome to Mindset in Action
• 2:31 The Dangers of Business Comparison
• 4:13 First Event Anxiety and Lessons
• 6:31 Don't Compare Chapters in Business
• 11:30 Social Media vs. Reality
• 16:45 Celebrating Wins and Making Plans
• 20:33 Upcoming Events and Special Guest

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:50

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Today we are talking about staying in your own lane, and this is something that I have to remind myself of multiple times throughout the day, the week, the month, you name it. I'm constantly having to remind myself of this, and it might be something that you need to remember as well. So what do I mean by staying in your own lane? This is where we put our blinkers on and we ignore what everybody else is doing and we stick to the plan. And although there is something to be said for looking around, you know we've got to do a bit of competitor analysis sometimes. You know we've got to learn from people who've been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and are bigger than us. There are lots of reasons why we will look outside, but the problem is is when you let that completely take over your mindset of what you're doing in your business and what we forget is that everybody else is doing something different. Either they're selling a different service They've got more experience, they've got more years under their belt. They're selling a different service. They've got more experience, they've got more years under their belt. They're at a different price point. There can. There is so much that could be different, so we can't compare ourselves, we can't do the apples to apples comparison, because it just doesn't exist and because of that we end up creating that overwhelm, that doubt, that imposter syndrome, because we can't get our heads out of our own way and remember that we are on our own journey. And so this is something that I want to talk about, because it is something that has come up for me recently in the fact that I've been creating this event. You might not know about it, but it's taking place this Thursday as I'm dropping this podcast and I am so super excited to be getting together with everybody.

Speaker 1: 3:04

But it did lead me to that comparison that you know I'm not good enough. You know I'm not good enough. I shouldn't have done it. I haven't sold enough tickets. I'm. What was I thinking? You know, all of those so-and-so's done it better than me. So-and-so got more people at their event. I don't know how I'm going to cope with this. Is this a good thing? Should I cancel it? Shouldn't I?

Speaker 1: 3:32

All of those things over the course of the last couple of months as I've been working up and creating this event. All of those things came up at different points during the journey, because I was looking outside of myself and I didn't have my blinkers on. I didn't focus on what was important, which was why had I set up this event in the first place, who did I want there and how was I going to get them there? And that should have been the main focus and that should have been what I focused on to a fault, without looking outside at everything else, because the people that I'm looking at that do that, you know, had events that had more people. These people have been doing events for a lot longer than me. This is my first ever in-person event, so it wasn't going to be as big as theirs. My ticket sales, I priced my tickets cheaper than those other people because it's the first time that I've done the event, and so I knew that I was like I've got to get people in to trust that it's going to be a good event, so you've got to start at a lower price point, which was absolutely fine, and I did that. So there were lots of things that sort of came up over the last couple of months. That just reminded me of this story that we have to keep reminding ourselves of staying in our own lane.

Speaker 1: 4:55

It is really important during business, if you're a podcaster, to keep that in mind, because what it does is, if you focus on what everybody else is doing, you lose your own path, you lose your own direction and all of a sudden you start to do things that weren't part of the plan, because you're trying to catch up to where somebody else is, or you're trying to capture the audience somebody else has got, or you're trying to do something to get you to where one of these other people are, which isn't helping you with what you're actually doing, and you lose sight of what you're doing. So this can you know. This can happen with in-person events, like I've said here, but this could happen with your podcast. So if you're doing a podcast and you're looking at somebody else who seemingly has more downloads than you or is getting bigger guests on their podcast or is, you know, getting sponsorships on their podcast, it's very easy to read into that that they're better than you at this, or you know you're not doing good enough in that, so that can happen.

Speaker 1: 6:03

And then in your business. Have you got as many clients as the person next to you at the networking event? No, then you must be failing, right? Well, no, because they're selling something completely different to you and their audience is different and the need is different and their call to action is you know, it's all different and we can't compare ourselves. But what it does when we do that is, it's just harmful. So it takes away from what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 6:30

It puts us in that comparisonitis stage which can make you feel icky about other people, because you're just like oh, it's not fair, they're doing better than me or whatever. And that doesn't come from that lovely place that we all love to be in, which is the generosity place, where we want to be kind to everybody and generous to everybody and give of our time and our help and care for other people and do all of that stuff, which is part of our human nature, I think. But when the comparison comes in, that is when that kind of mean girl status comes in and we're just like, oh, they're doing this and they've got it better than me, so why should I help them? And all of that stuff comes in, not Not saying that you deal with that, not saying that I deal with that in particular, but I can see how people can get to that point and it is really hard and you really do have to pull yourself back and go look, that person is not their business, that person is somebody else.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Just because their business is successful you know that's nothing to feel threatened by is successful. You know that's nothing to feel threatened by, and you know you've got to take people at face value. Let them show you who they are and believe them when they show you. So if they are a kind, generous person, you will probably find that actually some of the most successful business owners are really kind and really generous. That's what I have seen in my world and you know I that is the sort of thing that I do like to emulate. You know it's like well, I want to be that generous and I want to be that giving. And, of course, as somebody who is earlier on in their business journey than some of these people that I'm aspiring to be like, I can't be as generous as I would like to or as giving as I would like to, because I just don't have the facilities, the ability to do those things. But being grateful when it is shown to you and passing on a level of generosity that you can pass on is really a way of starting to build that, those good points that we do want to emulate when we see other people.

Speaker 1: 8:38

So, like I said, one of the stories that I was sort of told, the way that I was told it was you know, don't compare your chapter two to somebody's chapter 20, and you can choose whichever numbers you want, as long as there's a big gap, because that is where their experience is going to trump you. You know they have had the experience, they've had the downfalls, they've gone through the mistakes, they've learned the lessons and they've come out the other side and you aren't there yet. And as much as we can learn from these bigger people in the space, these people that have been in business longer, they're you know. Look at if you're a parent, look at how we teach our children. How many times do you try and save your children from making the same mistake you did? And they have to go through it and they have to make their own mistakes, and it's almost the same in businesses.

Speaker 1: 9:32

So, like we can't really learn without failing, without making the mistakes ourselves, because even as adults, you know somebody could say, no, you don't want to do that, because I tried it and this happened. Well, in reality, just because they tried it and that happened doesn't mean the same thing will happen for you. But we do get in our own heads of that, you know well. Just because that happened to you doesn't mean it's going to happen to me. I'm going to try it. Maybe it fails, maybe it doesn't. But the thing is is we have to make our own mistakes.

Speaker 1: 10:04

So you don't want to compare yourself to somebody who's 10 years in business if you're only three years in business, because it's just not comparable. You need to make sure that you are really feeling into your sense of self, your belief system, your plans, your dreams, your desires and how you're going to make those happen your dreams, your desires and how you're going to make those happen. And you can look to the bigger creators to see how they made it happen for them and what you can take from that which would work for you and your personality. But it's not about recreating their business, it's about creating your business. So you can't take it word for word what they say and just replicate it. That's not going to work, because their business works for them and their personality and their audience and what they're selling. So you have to find your own way to a degree, but we can always learn from these other entrepreneurs in the space that have been there and done it before. But it's not about comparing yourself to them, it's about learning from them. So, like I said, your journey is completely unique and your progress is going to happen at your own pace and it can be really, really.

Speaker 1: 11:34

I don't know what the word is that I'm looking for, but it's really discombobulating, for for want of a better word, when you see all of these stories and obviously everybody wants to present themselves in the best possible light on social media because they're trying to attract their clients, but the reality, the behind the scenes, what is actually happening, may be something very different to what you're seeing on social media, and you may see somebody sharing things all the time and think, oh, they must have it all together. They must be doing really well for paddling like an absolute lunatic under that still sea of calm and they are struggling to keep up and they're struggling to make it work. But you wouldn't know that from their social media and this is the problem with the fact that we do have this kind of internet access these days where we're all just seeing what people put out there. We're not really having those genuine conversations that we used to have when we all worked in offices and we're having that gossip over the water fountain or the the tea station or whatever. You're not having those deep conversations where you're actually getting to know somebody, getting to know that behind the scenes. It's very rare that you have that unless you have a close network and you've been networking for a long time and you've got that group. Oftentimes you find those are the people that can can show you the reality and say, okay, yes, you've seen xyz on social media from them, but you know the behind the scenes because you're close to them. So you've got to remember that that is happening to everybody.

Speaker 1: 13:13

So somebody who is huge, um, like Mel Robbins, for example, you know you might think she's got it all together. She's making millions, she's got this podcast that's really popular, she's on all these other really big podcasts, she's selling books, she's doing this, she's doing the other. But the reality of it and we do know quite a bit about Mel's backstory and her behind the scenes, as it were, because she does share it a lot, because that's part of her thing, you know, is showing you how she has struggled and how she has got past that. What is happening behind the scenes you don't know how hard she is or isn't working. You don't know the stresses that come with a book deadline and trying to make sure that you've got everything right and that it's the right thing that you want to put out there in time for that deadline. All of those things are something that they are having to deal with that you aren't going to necessarily know about.

Speaker 1: 14:18

So we've got to remember that what shows up on social media isn't the reality of the situation. It is what that person wants the outside world to see, whether that's because they want to pretend that they are rich and successful, or whether it's because they want to portray the best version of themselves for their clients to attract the right clients to them or other. You know there could be other reasons for it, but just because you're seeing parts of their lives on social media doesn't mean that you're seeing the whole picture, and there will be people that will be honest. You know I have been honest on my social media, on this podcast, about my mental health and about my overall health journey, things like that that I've spoken about. But I haven't sat here and talked about how successful or not successful my business is, and that's the difference is that a lot of people will let you into a little bit of their personal life so you can get to know, like and trust them and realise that they're human, but they're not necessarily giving you the dirty scoop of their business.

Speaker 1: 15:24

So it is hard when you see what you are portraying as somebody really successful, doing really successful things in their business, when the actuality of it could be, could be very different to what you're seeing, and that is a hard one to deal with, which is again why we need to stay in our own lane. It's not focusing on what everybody else is doing. It's focusing on what we are doing, what our dreams are, where we want our business to go. So limit social media in your comparisons. Like really try to put the blinkers on. Have your core people that really motivate you and lift you up and inspire you. Anybody that doesn't do that, unfollow them. You do not need to see them in your feed. Get rid of them, because that is not going to help you. Then make sure that you are comparing yourself from where you started. Look back at the beginning of your journey. Where were you and how far have you come?

Speaker 1: 16:27

I think a lot of us forget to look back at where we've actually been and where we are now in comparison, because we're always moving on to the next goal, the next goal, the next goal, and we don't take the opportunity to stop and listen, which is another reason why I'm doing this event on Thursday, because I am somebody who really is it falls into that category. I don't celebrate the little wins. I don't even feel like they're worth celebrate like that. I'm worth celebrating in that way. It's not something I do when I've had a good launch or, you know, I've sold a program or got a new client. This isn't something that I go out and celebrate. I'm like this is just part of business, right, but these are milestones and these are things to be proud of. Yet we don't take enough time to actually stop and do that. So take a look back at where you were in the beginning and where you are now and compare yourself to that, because that is going to be your benchmark where you started. So, like I said, celebrate those small wins we're going to be celebrating on Thursday. I am going to be getting the whole audience in on this celebrating.

Speaker 1: 17:33

I want to LinkedIn Donna Eid and I'm on my group on Facebook Start Podcast UK with Donna Eid. So if you want to come and follow me in any of those spaces, dm me and tell me what your wins are. I would love to know, small or big, if you manage to set up an email automation, which has been doing your head in for weeks, or a funnel, or you have managed to work out how to do an automation, you have gained 10 people on your email list in the last month. You know. Whatever it is, big or small, I would love to know your wins and then make your plan and stick to your plan. It is your business, it is your rules, it is your journey. So make sure that you are creating a plan that works for you and how you want to run your business and we're going to be talking about this at my event on Thursday how to plan for the business that you want and I have got Andrea Rainsford coming to talk to us about that. It's going to be fantastic.

Speaker 1: 18:49

And then, like I said, find the inspiration, not the competition. You know who inspires you, who makes you want to do better rather than makes you feel like they're doing better than me, because there are people. There are people that you know our personalities don't gel. We don't particularly like the way they are as people, and then it kind of feels like how can they be so successful when they're like that? But the fact is that we all interpret people differently. So somebody who you find annoying, somebody else is going to think is the best thing since sliced bread. So you know, we want to find those people that we are really drawn to, whose personalities kind of match our own, that we can see, as you know, people that we would love to be like when we're that far down the line in our business. Follow those people, get inspired by those people and get rid of anybody who doesn't fit that category.

Speaker 1: 19:47

So that is it for today, guys. I just wanted to bring you this little episode on staying in your own lane. So take action, make a plan, don't compare yourself to other people, even and remind yourself of this Whenever you take on something new, like for me it was this event. I've never done an in-person event before and the first thing I started to do was compare myself to other people who run events, all of whom who have been running events for more than a year, you know, more than 10 years in some cases. So I'm not going to be able to do what they do. So that is it for today, guys.

Speaker 1: 20:26

I hope to see some of you listeners on Thursday at the event. If I am not seeing you then, then have a fantastic week. I will obviously feed back on the event afterwards and I'm hoping to have the sessions to share on the podcast at some point. So look out for those coming down the line. I have a very special guest episode coming up very, very soon. I think it might be next week. I'm not sure how the editing is going to go, how the episodes are going. It may well come out the week before my birthday episode, or it may come out the week after, and the birthday episode is whichever one falls closest to the 16th of April. So that is it for today. Very excited to bring you this very special guest. We had a fantastic conversation and it's going to be awesome. So, yeah, that's it for today, guys. See you soon. Bye for now.