Stop beating yourself up!
Comparing yourself with another can be a curse and a blessing.
I’m a strong believer in comparing yourself to yourself AND comparing ‘notes’ to learn from one another. I agree with Teddy, comparing yourself to another that you perceive to be more successful than you, will only steal your joy!
Recently, I started reading the monthly income and traffic reports from Pinch of Yum (because my blog alliance partners Toot Sweet 4 Two share their monthly income/traffic reports and cited Pinch of Yum as their source for this fabulous idea). I have to tell you, these monthly income reports are fascinating!
I DON’T read these reports to compare my own blog to theirs or to beat myself up – because honestly, Pinch of Yum financially kicks my blog business bum every month and Toot Sweet 4 Two has made some amazing strides…standing O’s to both businesses!
I DO read these reports so I can compare my own notes (of what I’m doing + how I’m doing it) with their notes (what they’re doing + how doing it). By comparing notes, I’m learning from their successes and failures, and putting action plans into place to make my business stronger than it is today.
Luckily, Pinch of Yum and Toot Sweet 4 Two give this information to all of us for free. Since I was newly introduced to Pinch of Yum, I had LOTS of back reports to catch up on and it took me a while since I wrote notes as I went along (BTW: I started with their first report to the most recent)! I’ve also met some amazing bloggers and business professionals that I can call and/or email to ‘talk shop’ and compare notes with – this too is free. And lastly, I’ve paid to have business professionals consult me – there’s always someone who has been where you’ve been and who can look at your business and tell you the steps you can take to grow your business better + faster.
I want to be very clear…
Can I hear an AMEN to that?!
Compare yourself…to yourself.
Here’s a perfect example of me comparing myself to myself in order to improve my business:
In February, I did a paid feature to get my business in front of my target audience – a social media reach of 256,000+
Here’s the results…
New Facebook Likes: 76
Net Income (sales thus far – cost of paid feature): $700
Average visitors to blog: increased almost 100%
New email subscribers: 0
Referral traffic source: #5 referral source for the month
I also did a blog post where I interviewed Sarah of The Yellow Cape Cod. (If you missed this blog post, you can read it here. Sarah gave us some great nuggets on how she turned her dream job into a reality!)
Here’s the results…
New Facebook Likes: 7
Average visitors to blog: increased almost 300%
New email subscribers: 24 (note: There was no ASK, people just signed up)
Referral traffic source: #4 referral source for the month
Every month my goals are to have WIN days, increase traffic, increase email subscribers, and increase sales.
In the past, Facebook likes would have made me happy, but with the low percentage of people actually seeing your posts, I’m not seeing a lot of traffic to my site coming from Facebook anymore.
I was shocked to see the page visitors and referral source numbers being higher from the (free) interview post. I’ll definitely be doing more of these – it’s what my readers enjoy and value!
Will I do another paid feature? Sure. I’ll pay money to make money any day. I think next time, I’ll make sure the ‘ask’ is for subscribers and not Facebook…but this is how we learn, right?! (And how you can learn from my mistakes and others!)
Besides going to Urgent Care at 11pm on a Saturday night and our son ending up with stitches and crutches, February was a winning month for sure!
Final Musings.
Comparing yourself to yourself is healthy, don’t rob yourself of this joy! STOP beating yourself up and comparing yourself to others who have come before you! Celebrate your wins – you’ll eventually get to your chapter 20!
Please comment below a WIN or two that you can celebrate each day.
A win for me is as simple as getting out of my pajamas before noon! I also win when I complete a minimum of two items on my ‘daily to do list’, or when I drop everything to talk with the kids as soon as they arrive home from school. I have days that I fail miserably, but majority of my days I win…which makes my heart sing!
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