Have you ever been casually going about your day, then you see or hear something, and all of a sudden, now you’ve lost all motivation to do anything and would rather just crawl back into bed?

About a year ago, I was scrolling through Facebook (I know, things usually only go downhill from here) and I saw something that made my jaw drop and made my eyes nearly pop out of my head.

I was frozen in shock, and also a little sick to my stomach.

I had that feeling of having the wind knocked out of me.

But in order for you to understand what I saw, we should go back a little further than this.

About five years ago, after getting laid off from my job, I made the decision to leave corporate life behind and start an online Amazon book publishing business.

(I talk a little more about my story on my about page and in this article.)

I saw relatively quick success in that I was able to generate the same amount of money I earned from my previous full time job’s salary within about six months of starting the business.

In order to learn how to start this business, I bought a course, which came with a facebook group so you can connect with other students who are doing the same thing as you.

This extra resource is amazing because it puts you in a space where you are surrounded by people who understand your goals and share your challenges.

You can share techniques and strategies that work well, learn from each other’s mistakes, and share your triumphs.

So unlike in the “real world,” where it’s taboo to talk about how much money you make, in the “online world,” when you’re in a virtual community of people who have an online business, it’s very much customary to share exactly how much money you’re making, in the form of income report posts with screenshots.

This can serve as accountability for the poster, and inspiration to the viewers, as it proves to people that the model actually works if you put in the work, and comforts people to know that your efforts are not in vain and even though you may not see results now, you will if you keep going.

In the online business world, there are many commonly celebrated financial milestores, each of which is often shared in these facebook groups:

• your first dollar
• your first $100 day
• your first $1000 month
• your first check that rivals that of your fulltime job

One of the most coveted, most strived for, and most elusive milestones is the $10,000 a month mark. 

So when I was casually scrolling through facebook and saw my friend’s $120,000 monthly income report, you can see why my eyes popped out of my head.

I was doing the same business model he was doing, and for around the same amount of time, but he had well over 10x my results.

And it didn’t help that this was on the heels of recently seeing a different friend’s monthly income report that was $60,000 just a few weeks earlier.

That amount may seem to pale in comparison to the other six figure monthly income report.

But considering that the $60,000 monthly income report was from a friend who, a few years prior when I posted an income report for one tenth that amount, messaged me congratulating me on my success and asked me for advice because he was struggling in his business…it stung a little more.

The timing of all of this was uncanny.

I had just been talking to my accountability partner about committing to not comparing myself to others, then I get hit with a $60,000 monthly income report.

It was as if as soon as the words came out of my mouth, the test came to see if I really meant it.

I felt dejected, got a pep talk, recovered, then boom, get hit with double.

At this point, I’m thinking maybe my friend and I should stop having this conversation because I don’t know if my heart can take a $250,000 month income report.

I was truly happy for my friends.

But also truly disappointed in myself.

With every increasing income report I saw, the more inadequate I felt, and the wider the gap became between where I was and where I thought was good enough.

Disappointment and inadequacy gave way to shock.

And it all just transmuted into a jealousy that didn’t want to take away from my friends, but that wished so badly that I could attain that level of success myself.

When jealousy arises, many other emotions, and many questions come along with it.

Jealousy is impossible to avoid.

We do not exist in a vacuum.

We are surrounded by constant access to peeks into other people’s lives–lives that contain elements that we want to possess and experience ourselves.

So what do you do when jealousy arises?

Instead of stewing in it, consider doing the following…

Recognize the magnitude of your own achievements–macro and micro.

To even make a dollar online is already something most people have never achieved.

To even try to make a dollar online or start a business is more than most people are willing to do.

To even feel enough hope for a better future, and enough confidence in yourself to invest money into learning new skills and time into starting a new business model you’ve never done or heard of before takes a lot.

Those were all great achievements in and of themselves.

But by comparing myself to people ahead of me, I lost sight of the magnitude of how far I had come on my own personal journey.

And more importantly, I lost the sense of tremendous gratitude I’d previously felt for building something that allowed me to make a passive income greater than the average full time salary, travel the world full time, and visit over thirty countries when there was a time in my life I couldn’ t even see myself visiting one.

We only see ourselves as deserving of celebration when we get the big wins.

On the way to the Superbowl, there are many football games that have to be played successfully to get there.

There are countless plays that have to be executed successfully in order to win those games.

And there are even more practices, workouts, and training exercises that have to be executed successfully to lead up to those plays.

Don’t wait until you get to the top of the mountain to pat yourself on the back.

Your victories, no matter how small they may seem in comparison to someone else’s, already warrant praise and gratitude and are comprised of many smaller victories that also deserve praise and gratitude.

Don’t identify with your faults.

When I felt that first pang of jealousy…

I didn’t immediately think “What’s wrong with what I’m doing?”

I thought “What’s wrong with me?”

I didn’t look for fault in my actions.

I looked for fault in myself.

What traits do I not possess that he has?

Am I not intelligent enough?

Not disciplined enough?

Not skilled enough?

Not good enough?

I’m too perfectionistic.

I’m too inefficient.

I’m moving too slow.

Every possible explanation I could find to rationalize the difference between my results and those of my friend, centered around lack vs room for improvement.

Instead of just noticing, I identified with the obstacles I felt I was allowing to get in my way.

It’s good to examine what other people are doing and use it to give you ideas on how you can improve.

It’s not good to assign yourself negative traits, latch onto them, and beat yourself up for possessing them.

Don’t think of shortcomings in terms of traits.

Instead, it’s much more constructive (and mentally and emotionally healthy) to think of shortcomings in terms of actions.

Instead of disempowering yourself by identifying with negative traits that demotivate you, you empower yourself to implement different actions that can lead to different and better results.

Instead of saying “I’m too perfectionistic,” transform that negative trait you’ve assigned yourself into an action by deciding that from now on, you will give yourself a time limit on every task so you don’t spend too much time in rumination.

Instead of saying “I’m not disciplined enough,” decide to commit to adding one extra hour of work and eliminating one hour of screen time each day.

Turn your self-assigned negative traits into actionable tasks, so you don’t identify with the ways you feel you fall short.

Result does not equate to identity.

Result highlights the necessity of a different strategy.

To fail at something doesn’t make you a failure.

You just need to try a different approach.

Look for differences in inputs.

Where there are different outputs (as a result of pursuing the same goal), there are different inputs.

So two questions to ask here are:

01 – What are they doing that I’m not doing?

My friend and I were doing the same business model, but we couldn’t have been doing the same exact things if we weren’t getting the same results.

After talking to my friend about his strategy, he:

• had a VA helping him
• had published three times as many books as I did
• was in a different niche that was conducive to monetizing beyond selling just books

Where I was doing everything on my own and burning out as a result…

he was multiplying his efforts by leveraging the time and energy of someone else.

Where I was overthinking, and being meticulous and perfectionistic…

his speed of implementation and speed to market provided him with more products available for sale and more experience to pull from to improve his strategies moving forward with each new launch.

Where I was limiting my business to just selling books on a single platform…

he was building a stronger foundation for his business by building a well-rounded brand with a suite of higher ticket products, and building an audience that he owned beyond the borrowed audience on Amazon.

It’s not to say that I couldn’t eventually attain a higher level of success doing things “my way,” as there’s always more than one way to do things.

But the problem is we often default to the hardest way to do things by refusing to learn, pivot, or consider that someone else’s way may be better than our own.

Whenever someone in your field is performing better than you, it’s worth taking a look at what they’re doing and seeing if it makes sense to incorporate the tactics that are clearly working for them.

02 – What are they doing that I’m not willing to do?

When I first started my online business, my goal was not to get rich.

My goal was to get free.

That difference alone will dictate the things I am willing to do vs someone else.

I started that business knowing that there was unlimited income potential unlike with a job, which was important to me, but my primary aim was to make enough passive monthly income to replace my full time job’s salary, so I could free up my location and free up my time.

I wanted to travel the world.

I wanted to explore new hobbies.

I wanted to cross things off my bucket list.

During that season…

• I was more interested in filling my passport and travelling constantly, than staying in one place in a consistent work routine.
• I was more interested in paying for experiences, than paying for employee salaries.
• I was more interested in increasing the number of checks on my bucket list, than increasing the number of checks deposited into my bank account.

And my actions reflected that.

As did my results.

All these things took time and attention away from growing my business.

I excelled personally where my business slightly suffered.

Had my priorities been reversed, that would have been tipped, and in that season, I would have excelled in my business, and suffered personally.

At that time, I was not willing to consistently work ten hour days, weekends, or holidays.

I did not want to grow my business at any cost because I had no interest in managing a large team of people.

I wanted a lifestyle business, not a business that would take over my life.

At the end of the day, in my case, my friend’s inputs required more consistency and more discipline than I was putting in. 

So many people stop themselves from doing what they know they are supposed to do because they allow reasons like “I’m tired,” “I don’t feel like it,” and “I don’t want to” to stop them.

Sometimes, you’d rather watch Netflix than work an extra two hours.

That’s fine.

But remember:

Your results will always manifest in accordance with your most consistent actions.

You don’t have to tell people what you’re doing.

They can see it by your outcomes.

You don’t have to tell people your habits.

They can see them by your results.

You don’t have to tell people your priorities.

They can see them by your actions.

You don’t have to tell people your limiting beliefs.

They can see them by your inaction.

The path to success is not always shrouded in as much mystery or injustice as we sometimes make it out to be.

Make sure your ego can handle what you’re asking for.

They say that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

It’s only in the past few years that I began to take that to heart.

By joining different groups both on and offline, attending certain events, and moving to intentionally chosen geographic locations, I started to make a real attempt to surround myself with people who had the beliefs, perspectives, lifestyles, businesses, and incomes that I wanted.

I once complained that I didn’t have enough proximity to people who were the kind of successful that I wanted to be based on the way I defined success.

I yearned to have people in my personal circle who I could be inspired by and could learn from.

I begged for successful friends.

And what happened when I got them?

I fell apart.

My ego couldn’t handle someone else’s success without equating it to my failure.

Would it have been better to surround myself with unsuccessful people so my ego and pride can have it easier?

Another person’s success is not your problem.

Your ego is.

What if the same ego and pride you feel that destroys you when you see other people’s success is the same ego and pride that would destroy you if you were to attain that success for yourself?

Best learn to check your ego at the level you are at now to avoid bigger problems in the future.

An inevitable part of being successful is having other successful people around you.

And you cannot take their success personally.

You must learn to be okay with watching other people win, and remember that first winner does not mean only winner.

Someone else’s success does not diminish nor negate yours.

Someone else’s victory does not disqualify you from your own.