Comparison Kills Your Confidence In Business: Staying In Your Own Lane - Val Nichols Business Coach

Hey guys, Val Nichols here coming at you live on this beautiful Monday. Give me a shout out if you freaking love Mondays as much as I do. If you love Mondays, let me know. I would love to hear it. So guys, I want to talk to you today about how comparison kills your confidence in business. So stick around. We're going to give it— get some juicy little nuggets here. I'm going to talk about, you know, staying in your own lane. So join in on the conversation. I would love for you to drop below. Let me know what business are you in? Are you in a business or are you wanting to start out a business or are you just catching this live to get some real great pointers about how to stay in your own lane and how to stop letting comparison steal your confidence? Because here's the deal. I remember when I first brought my business into the online world, I was constantly having my eyes on all these other people in the world who were also doing coaching. I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm not as good as them. My branding isn't as beautiful. I'm not as eloquent. I can't speak well on Facebook Lives. As a matter of fact, you guys, there was a time when I wasn't even doing Facebook Lives on my personal page because I was, I was really afraid. I was afraid of what would people think of me? Would they think, oh my gosh, who is she to be doing this? Like, who does she think she is to teach someone how to do business? You know, like all these things that went through my mind. I was definitely in that role of just like deep comparison. And you know, the thing that I had to realize was that, you know, I can't really compare my chapter 1 or my chapter 2 or, you know, maybe even my chapter 6 to someone else's chapter 10, chapter 17, whatever that is. You know, I remember a time in my business when I was charging like $397 a month for coaching, for one-on-one coaching, which just seems so crazy to me now because, you know, I In the last month, I was able to sign a $3,500, a $4,500, and 2 $7,000 coaching clients. So I signed on $7,000 clients, you know, and I remember seeing other people doing that. I remember seeing one coach was charging $5,000 for her coaching and I was like, oh my gosh, I will never get there. I will never get there. And here's the thing about that. It's much like if we're driving our car, right? Like we've got to stay in our own lane. We have got to stay in our own lane because if we're so busy looking forward or we're so busy looking at what this person's doing or looking that way or looking behind us or looking wherever it is that we're doing, if we're so busy looking at all the other cars around us, what ends up happening is we end up crashing, right? We end up crashing. So what I realized is, you know, I've got to stick in my own lane. I have to really, instead of looking at all these outside things, because I would see other people online, doing all these things and it appeared to be working for them, right? It appeared to be working for them. They were hitting, you know, $20,000 months, which I thought I would never get to, which, you know, totally possible to do. I'm now hitting $30,000, $35,000, $40,000 months. But I remember a time when I thought I would never get to that. And so I was so busy focused on that and so busy focusing on the lack of what I had that I wasn't focusing on the right here, the right now, and focusing on, you know, what is it that I really want to bring forth? To the world. You know, that was the biggest game changer for me, and I think it happened probably around 2 and a half years ago or so, where I realized, you know, instead of looking out at all these other people and trying to imitate their technique without really knowing the strategy or the mindset or, you know, whatever behind what they were doing, I was really just throwing spaghetti up against the wall, right? Like throwing Spaghetti up, trying to figure out what would stick. But once I really realized, which is going to be my tip for you today, is you know tip number one is definitely to to stay inner focused. And what I mean by this is when you're staying in your own lane, you are kind of like how there's like what five hundred billion quadrillion different places to get pizza in the world. You can have the Neapolitan pizza. You can have thin crust. You can have New York crust, you can have thick crust, whatever that is for you. There's probably a billion different places to get pizza in the world, but the thing is each one of us has our favorite pizza place that we go to because we love the way it's delivered. We love the way it tastes. We love the flavor. We love the style. We love the service, whatever it is. And in the same sense, no matter what you do in the world, there might be a ton of competition. You might be in a market that is completely saturated. You might be in a market that's very niche and you don't have a lot of competition. But here's the deal. No one can do it the way you do it. No one can deliver it the way that you deliver it, the style, the flavor. No one can really like give the information and the knowledge that you know in the way that you can deliver it. And when you're focused on really like feeling what is right for you, I do this all the time with my one-on-one clients. It's like really focusing in, you know, putting your hand on your heart and really focusing in on What is it that I'm feeling drawn to share? What is it that I feel? What is the message that I have for the world? And really come from that place alone. Because if you're always focusing on everyone else and what they're doing and all the things without knowing the strategy or the mindset, what's gonna end up happening is you're gonna end up spinning your wheels, getting nowhere fast, trying to figure out what's going on just off of a surface-level representation of what they're doing in their brand, when really the only guidance you can follow by staying in your own lane, going deep within yourself and finding out what is the message I want to carry with the world? What is unique for me and how I deliver it? How am I going to deliver this so that if it's true to myself, true to my brand, and it's true to the message that I really want to share in the world. So, you know, the only thing that comparison does for us, I mean, let's be honest, the only thing it does is it makes you feel bad about yourself. It makes you feel anxiety. It makes you feel just really just kind of crummy, you know, because you're always looking at— you're focusing on the gap of what you don't have. You're focusing on the gap of what you don't have, and you're focusing on what other people are bringing and what other people are doing. So you're never really looking at your own brand and finding out like, what is it that I really want to do? It can end up leading you totally astray trying to do like a million different strategies at once without really getting clear on who you are and how you bring your message to the world in a way that you're going to be seen. You're going to create raving fans in your business, which repeats, which brings repeat customers, which brings organic content, which brings a whole message to the world, which is why you started your business in the first place. Can I get a yes? Heck yes. So, you know, look forward, focus on the road that's ahead of you. Become clear in your brand, who you are, find your voice. If you need any, if you have any questions about finding your voice, I'd love to guide you in that too. These are, this is something that has been a huge game changer in my business, in my life, in, you know, just the direction of my entire, like where I'm going in the world, where I've been, the messages I've shared on stages, you know, the message that I get to share with my clients, the message I get to share with the world. So I encourage you to do the same, you know, stay in your lane, Focus inwards on what it is that you really— what message do you want to bring to the world? And if you're in that spot where you're really tempted to go around and look around at what everyone else is doing and try and emulate a strategy without really knowing, you know, the details and the goals in their brands, then, you know, if you need to, honestly, just limit your time on social media. Limit the time you have where you're gonna say, okay, I'm gonna go on and post, I'm gonna go live, I'm gonna go check my messages, I'm gonna go do whatever, and then I'm gonna get off so that I'm not falling in that trap and that temptation to keep comparing myself to the rest of the world. And most of all, when you stay in your lane, you are looking forward. You are setting your sights. It's kind of like plugging in a GPS into your GPS system. You have to know the destination. You get to make this decision and you get to bring it back to self. You get to bring it back to self, and that's such an empowered place where you're making decisions for your brand, your business, and your message out of a combination of things, whether that's your faith, your beliefs, the message you want to share, the products you have, the difference, the impact you want to make in the world, and not to mention the amount of income that you want to generate into your business. So you want to look at all of these things, and you know, the biggest sense of advice I can give you is just, you know, focus on what you're doing. Go within yourself instead of looking around at a million different strategies that are going on in the outside world. Remember who you are. Remember the purpose that you had when you started this business, and remember you have a beautiful, amazing, wonderful, gorgeous message to share with the world. And I am just going to root you on and cheer with you. So if you love this content, let me know. I would love to hear about it. I would love to hear. What landed for you? Did it make a difference? And if you have someone that you know needs to hear this message, feel free to share it out. You can just press the share tab. It's gonna share it out. You can share it onto your main page. You can share it with a girlfriend. Whatever you wanna do, just go ahead and share it out. That would mean the world to me. I love you guys so much. I hope you got something from this, and I will talk to you soon. Mwah! Bye! Have an amazing Monday!