Why is it that others seem to be doing better than me?
Are you suffering from ‘Elegant Swan’ envy? … There are plenty of ‘Elegant Swans’ about.
The Ancient Greeks saw swans as symbolising grace and beauty. They saw the bird as associated with love, music, poetry; it was often pictured singing to a lyre. In Greek mythology, the swan is a bird sacred to Aphrodite and Apollo.
Swans glide majestically when swimming. They are seen as a dominant force on the pond; they look in charge. They certainly push the other birds away from any food they want. What you don’t see is their scaly, large feet paddling like fury underneath.
This is what I mean by a person who is an ‘Elegant Swan’. All grace on top and all stress and turmoil underneath.
How often have you looked at your neighbours, your coworkers, friends and others you come into contact with and think, “Wow! Their life looks great. Wish I was as well off, happy, attractive, fit, funny, popular …”. The truth is, they may well be thinking the same of you.
The saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side” comes to mind.
Social media has a lot to answer for. People tend to only post the ‘good stuff’ about their life.
So it’s not surprising that I come across quite a number of people who think they’re not doing well in contrast to others around them. Writing mentor and ghostwriter, Joanna Collie, was surprised to discover the truth about her own progress:
“I was secretly a bit relieved,” she confesses. “I work alone a lot of the time and run my own business, so I miss having somebody else’s support and objectivity on how things are going. It’s easy to self-doubt when you see others swamping social media channels with highlights and news of their latest achievements — even the dubious ones.”
“When Alex worked with me on clarifying my goals, I saw clearly that I was doing just fine. I’ve stopped measuring my progress up to somebody else’s path — I prefer my own!”
The truth is, you don’t actually know how well someone else is really doing. That expensive car is on lease, that house is rented, their holidays look great, but they’re on a tight budget; and, typically, many people are living beyond their means and building up crippling debts, thinking “I can always pay that back another day, when my ship comes in, or I win the lotto”.
It’s also easy to feel intellectually inferior, telling yourself, “They seem smarter than me. They are more eloquent, more educated …”. I’ve come across many an unhappy guru, genius, professor. It’s all about how you view your life. It is easy to think others are smarter than you. It’s typically because they invested more time and effort in learning and developing themselves. Other times, people can just be downright nasty. It’s easy to make someone feel inferior. I’ve had personal experience of that — although I won’t go into it here.
I usually find that good people are smarter than they realise, have more skills than they realise and are just ‘more’ than they credit themselves.
I believe that most people have the ability to achieve great things with their lives. When you know what your attributes are and you focus on what you are good at, you can achieve.
Some of the world’s greatest achievers have seemed not that brilliant. But they did it anyway and made it.
It doesn’t mean they’re happy. That’s a state of mind.
In the words of the song -Soak up the sun by Sheryl Crow … it’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you have.
So, how do you know if you’re doing well? Start by knowing how well you’re doing against your dreams and goals. Have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and by when.
Don’t fear the numbers.
As Warren Buffet said, “If you can’t read the scoreboard, you don’t know the score. If you don’t know the score, you can’t tell the winners from the losers.”
So you had better understand the numbers of your business.
You can find out more about these numbers here (click this link to one of my blogs on financials).
For this article though, we’re looking at the perception that others are doing better than you. They are probably not.
Don’t worry about how you think others are doing.
