We LOOK a lot more successful than we ARE. And we ARE a lot more successful than we FEEL.

First published on February 2, 2018

Something came to me this week, a strange slightly paradoxical thought: We look a lot more successful than we are. But we are a lot more successful than we feel.

We Look A Lot More Successful Than We Are

Of course we do. We live in the world of social media, where we almost always post on there only the sexiest pictures of ourselves, the most glorious shots of us in sunny places, babies looking happy, children looking cute, our cats playing, hilarious thoughts we've just had, the programmes we've launched, our business successes, great testimonials, our engagements and our weddings. Occasionally we post about something bad, but usually it's about how shoddy something else has been to cause our misery. We get a lot of sympathy, but we don't post about the misery itself.

Imagine if we did. Imagine if a different social media existed, full of: incredibly unsexy photos of us, each of us huddling in a doorway in Costa Rica in a tropical rainstorm wishing we weren't bloody freezing and could just be back in England where the rain is normal, babies screaming, children looking infuriating as they smash up stuff and cause chaos, cats spitting or pissing, dull thoughts we've had (let's face it, this is most of them), the programmes we launched which we don't sell a single place for, the business failures, terrible (or worse still, incredibly average) testimonials, breakups and divorces. These things don't show up on social media. We can do these things quietly. And maybe that's a good thing. We don't want to always share our failures with the world, and that's fine.

But it creates a paradox. We see how successful other people are, and we compare what's going on for them in social media with what's going on for us in REAL LIFE. And in real life, all that second paragraph happens. So that's not a fair comparison.

We Are A Lot More Successful Than We Feel

And that, along with a roll of other things, brings us to the second part of that thought (not, I think, one of my incredibly dull ones). We are a lot more successful than we feel. We spend so much time comparing ourselves to others in this incredibly unbalanced way, that we develop a twisted version of our own success.

Because we mostly don't hear about successful celebrities and business people talking about how they can't sleep, how they worry, how six businesses fail before any succeeded. We get wrapped up in our own failures, our own struggles. And some of you may be saying that the combination of the Beckett quote and the Silicon Valley attitude to failure have changed that, and it is probably true that there are great stories of failure out there. And listening to Tim Ferriss and working with Rich Litvin reminds me that there are people out there trying to talk about the struggles, and the things which led them to where they are.

But most of us don't realise that. Because the business failures that get talked about tend to be the ones which come before great success, and maybe our great success hasn't come yet. Because we see the sunny holiday, and we think about how we're failing because we can't afford to do one this year. Or we see the engagement and we think, 'I'm 33 and I'm never going to meet anyone". Or we see the successful career path and think "Hell, I'm never going to have that."

No One Can Compete With You At Being You

But here's the thing. Other people are thinking the same about you. I bet they are. You don't believe me, but they almost have to think that, unless you never talk about your successes. Because inside of almost all of us is the voice telling us we're not good enough, trying to keep us safe and hidden. And we are wonderful at comparing ourselves to others. Competition has been one of the things which has driven us on to greater and greater achievements as a species. But when competition stifles us because of the unbalanced view that we take of the world, coupled with our internal stories, then it isn't helping. So here's the thing to remember.

No one can compete with you at being you. So find that thing, that thing that only you can do. Take your failures, take your successes. Be a professional, and give them the weight they deserve. And they both deserve weight. And then do the things which only you can do, bringing the gift and experience that only you can bring.

You look more successful than you are.

You are more successful than you feel.

And no one can compete with you at being you.