"Everyone else is doing better than I am." Conquering Comparisonitis as a Professional Organizer
You might not have heard me talk about “comparisonitis” but this one is really important for professional organizers to think about—and it is potentially harming your business.
Typically I'm more on the train of, “Hey, I want to give you concrete things to do in your business.” I like giving people a list of three things that I want you to do—I want you to think about this, that and the other. But it is also really important as business owners that we think about some of the more global things—like our mindset, how we approach our business, and what are some blocks that are in place?
What measurement tool are you using in your pro organizing business? If you’re using someone else’s measurements—I want to talk to you!
This is based on a conversation I had with someone that is an amazing organizer—she has a fantastic business. So this is a problem that can plague ANYONE.
The block I’m talking about today is one that I just call simply comparisonitis. It's a cutesy phrase for something that really isn't cute at all.
It is this feeling of, Everyone else is doing better than I am.
Every other organizer has a better business than I do.
Everybody else is doing X, Y, Z, I should be doing that too.
It's looking around you and rejecting what you know is good for you and your business, because you are trying to live up to being someone else.
I want to talk about this today because recently, someone I know who is a very successful organizer with a great business, said, basically, “Why am I even bothering? All these people are doing so much better than I am.” She was talking about people that she had seen recently who were talking about how great their businesses were, and she felt “less than.”
She had seen these other people and interpreted that “Everybody's doing better than I am.” And that hit me like a ton of bricks because this person has a great business and so many things to be proud of. She wants to grow it, which is awesome, and I am excited to help her do that, but her existing business is already pretty great. BUT—like a lot of us, INCLUDING ME, she still feels like maybe she's a little bit less than everybody else.
By the way, she has the kind of business that other people are probably looking at and going, “Hey, that looks like a great business and she's going great.”
So, this is just your reminder—Everybody has these feelings and you might be the person that other people have those feelings about while you're busy comparing yourself to someone else!
I believe with every fiber of my being that the biggest reason this happens, and I know that maybe you are tired of me talking about my feelings about social media, but they are so integral to what we do in this business—social media is the reason comparisonitis exists in our life.
99% of the time, the comments that I get (by the way, this person that told me this last week, they're not the first person to tell me they feel this way, and they will not be the last person to tell me that they feel this way) comes because you are looking at other people on social, on Instagram, on Facebook, or any other platform. You perceive that people are doing things that are better than you, or more important than you, or more impactful or bigger, or any of those things, from a small snapshot on social media.
I just want to remind you—we all have those people in our lives—ALL of us do—even with people who might be very close friends of yours, and you see what they're posting on social media, and you think to yourself….umm, but I know the “actual” story! I know the behind the scenes of all of these things that you're saying that do not align with what I am seeing you face forward online.
It happened me today, actually! I sent a text message to a client of mine, a long ago client whom I'm friends with on social media. I have not seen her in a while and I always really loved her. And so I said, “Hey, I just want to let you know I think about you a lot, and I see you on social media. Everything I've seen on Facebook, it looks like you're just really happy and doing well, and I'm so happy for you.” Her verbatim reply to me: “Um, yeah, no, my social media is 100% BS, LOL.” That is a direct quote!
Am I saying that all social media is crap? No. I genuinely believe that there are people out there who are telling a real story. But here's the reminder that I want to give you—that you do not have remotely a complete story on social media about anything. Whether it is personal, professional or anything else.
You know those pictures that we all take at our clients where we're like, oh, this, this pantry looks great, this closet looks great—you take that photo. And by the way, it feels great to have that photo. It especially feels great if you have a before photo to compare it against you and be like, man, look at how good I am at my job. But—think about that picture and then think about when you go back to their house two weeks later, and real life has intervened. That's just a reminder that social media is a picture of one moment in time and you do not have the full story.
When it comes to comparing yourself against other organizers, here are a few reminders for you.
You do not know how many clients that person actually has.
You do not know anything about their business.
You don't know how much money that they're making, how much money they are spending, what their expenses are.
You don't know if they maybe have a safety net of something else that is supporting them financially and this is a hobby whereas it is your full-time job.
You don't know if the house that they're in is a house that they Airbnb to house of a friend of theirs or a client.
You do not know if that picture was from yesterday or three years ago.
You don't know anything about the real story.
Success is absolutely individual. And it is not governed by what other people are doing.
If you are a solo organizer, but you are measuring your success and looking at someone who has teams in three different states—you are measuring using a completely different yardstick.
If you are doing organizing as a part time looking to move full time, and you're measuring yourself up against someone who has done this full-time for 10 years—that yard stick isn't the same.
Your success is based on how you are measuring up toward your own personal goals, whether those are financial, whether it is just time spent doing something that you enjoy, whether it is just, “I want to start a business and I feel compelled and I'd like to turn this into something bigger.” Success to you may be, “I would like to just have one client a month that I can help get organized.” Or it could be, I would like teams in five different cities, and I want to grow to that.
Measuring whatever your personal goal of success is against what someone else's yard stick is—you're using two completely different measurement systems.
Here's another thing that I want to remind you about. As an organizer, I go into people's houses, and we are in houses in all sorts of neighborhoods. I have one house in particular that I'm thinking about as I tell this story.
I go to the house and it's in a very beautiful neighborhood, and it’s a very beautiful home. And I looked at all the other beautiful homes in that neighborhood, and I just said, you know what? I'm guessing that the neighbors and the other people, if they're taking a walk around this neighborhood, they have no earthly idea of all of the things that are going on in this house that I'm walking into.
I know these things are going on because my clients trust me and our clients trust us. And they come to us with very deep things. I know what's happening in this house—I know the family dynamics, and I know the stress, and I know the marital problems. And I know about all of the chaos that's living underneath this nice exterior. Guess what? Looking at all those houses, how many of those other houses have chaos going on? Probably a lot.
So that is the thing that I think about, especially as we're looking at social media, is—we don't know what's going on behind that photo, in the same way that people in the neighborhood don't know what's going on in our client's homes. So I want you to think of it that way when you're on the comparison train.
If you're in this trap, I want you to find a way to stop. It's very easy to compare. It's very easy to feel like, “I need to do more and more and more and more and more, but that might not be true to who I am and what I actually need.”
So I want to give you this moment to just stop and reflect. And be really honest with yourself and say, do I get struck by comparisonitis.
It's incredibly normal and natural, especially as we care so much about our businesses. We want them to be successful. We want them to help people. We want them to meet our goals. And so, because we care so much, that's why this comparisonitis is hard, because we mean the best.
If you are in one of these modes where you're looking around going—”everyone else is doing it better than me”—I want you to examine whether this is motivating you or is it breaking you down and paralyzing you?
There are two very distinct paths this can take. For example, I'm a very competitive person, and so sometimes when I see other people doing something, particularly other people who are coaching organizers, I go, oh, look what she's doing. That's really smart. I wonder if there's something that I could create for my particular audience and my ideal client? I try to use it as inspiration instead of letting it paralyze me. Examine if it is inspirational to you and motivational, and it’s going to make you want to go create something great.
However, if looking at what other people are doing is paralyzing you—and you might be wallowing because “everyone else is doing better than me, so why do I even bother?” I want you to stop and do something different.
What does that look like? I have ideas!!
UNFOLLOW.
This is the best first step. You can just straight up unfollow, or if you don't want to unfollow, which I do understand, there is a button on Instagram that's called “mute.”
You can use the mute button just so it will not feed you, in either your stories or your newsfeed, of people who you find yourself in that comparison trap with.
I know a very extremely well adjusted, mentally healthy, successful organizer who said, “I just know that I'm better if I don't follow any organizer that is in my geographic area.” That's better for her because she just knows she doesn't have to see it.
If you're in one of these comparison traps, unfollow or mute the posts that are really the ones that really kind of set you off. It is not a commentary on how lovely that person is in real life or on, on Instagram. It's not a commentary on their content. It's not a commentary on anything. It is just simply “it is better for my brain and my mental health and my business to not see this content.”
By the way, the reason I suggest muting is there might be a time that you start to feel better. And then you're like, all right, you know what? I would really love to see what she's doing. I would love to support her. And you can let that content back in, but just give yourself a break, and just give yourself the space and the grace that it just may not be good for you.
You can just take a full-on social media break.
Yes—you really can do that. You can just not look at social, participate in social, for a period of time that works for you. Take a break!
Use a social management tool that doesn’t allow scrolling.
Let's say you're like, Melissa, you are not going to convince me to take social media break. It's not realistic, or I don't want to,
If you find yourself in the comparisonitis trap and or if you find yourself just scrolling a lot, this is a trick that I personally swear by.
Meta has a business page management tool that includes Instagram and Facebook, and it includes your DMs, messages and comments. You could post something on Instagram and then never have to open the Instagram app to actually moderate it.
You can schedule content ahead of time and just post it on Instagram using the scheduling tool, or you can use another tool—I personally like Planoly—but you can actually post again without going on Instagram and then use the Meta business tool to do all of the interaction and engagement work that you want to without having to scroll.
Look at your numbers.
I want to be clear—I'm not telling you anything that I don't personally do myself. One thing I do a lot is look at how much time I’m spending on things that don't move the needle in my business. And by the way, this does not just include social media! It includes really everything on your phone.
I am definitely a person that spends too much time attached to my phone and I've been trying to be better about it. It's hard. They make these devices addictive, literally addictive! And so I find myself sometimes like, “oh, I didn't get as much accomplished today as I want to.” Why is that? I can go to my screen time and be like, “well, Melissa, I have a couple ideas why you didn't accomplish everything today.”
If you are finding yourself in a little bit of that spiral of lack of productivity, and you're taking time away from useful things on your business, you can look at your screen time, which is sometimes a painful exercise! You can do that and determine, wow, I spent x amount of time on Instagram?!
The other thing that I've done for myself lately, which I advise, is set app limits. For instance, I have a set limit for myself on a few apps that I can tend to get stuck on. And so at the end of whatever limit you put on yourself for that day, it will say you've reached your limit on this app. Then you get to make a choice then about your usage, but I use it as a tool for myself to regulate a little bit of my phone usage.
Your comparisonitis trap could be based on something else. Maybe it's other people you're talking to, or a networking group, or people that you're seeing in real life. I just want you to stop and think, “what about this are my triggers?” “What are some of the things that could send me into those spirals?” I like to figure out how I can take actions on things that are bothering me or that I am choosing to let bother me.
So I will just say, this is bugging me. What useful things can I do over here to move myself forward or do something different? I might contact an accountability partner and just be like, “Hey, I'm stuck in this. Kick me out of it.” I have a wonderful friend who runs a styling business and she's very much a person that I will run to and be like, oh my gosh, I'm having a moment. And I need you to get me out of it.
What happens is you get stuck in a cycle and then you realize you are not actually taking action yourself to fix the problem that you're having.
When it comes to comparisonitis, just a reminder. The things you see on social or otherwise are never telling you the full story. It doesn't necessarily mean that everything is perfect and wonderful. Do not let it get you into a point where then you are not making forward progress to your own goals, because you're busy thinking about what everyone else is doing. Then take the time to figure out how you can get out.
If you are stuck remind yourself—every minute that you spend working on your own business is better for you!
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