I live in a home where “Sports Center,” “Inside the NFL,” and similar shows are often on the television. I am sure some of you can relate. Most often they become “white noise” to me. This weekend I happened to hear a conversation about a specific football player, whose name I don’t remember. One of the commentators said that this player needed to be more careful not to get caught up in the game around him.

As I heard that, I thought about how easy it is for us to do that as creative arts entrepreneurs. We look around at what others are doing. How do we compare to them? Is their art stronger? Are they more successful? It is so easy to do that and not pay attention to where we are.

And, worse, we are comparing apples to oranges. We do not know what that other person’s real journey has been. We only see what they show us. And, the negative self-talk starts.

Part of our problem is that we compare our “actual” to an “ideal,” what I like to call “perfect” or someone else’s achievements. Sure we can use that ideal to set our goals, but we should not measure our success by this gap between the actual and the ideal. Instead we should measure by looking back. Look at where we are today and where we started. By focusing on our actuals, rather than the gap, we are much happier about our success. This will provide confidence and motivate us to achieve more.

So when you find yourself getting caught up in the game around you, rather than your own, whether that is comparing yourself to someone else, thinking you should be further along the path than you are, stop and remember to play the game that you are in. Put blinders on, focus on where you are and where you are going, become your own master, and celebrate your uniqueness.

“Put blinders on to those things that conspire to hold you back, especially the ones in your own head.”
Meryl Streep

Maybe you have a technique to block out those negative messages that try to trap you into thinking your work does not compare. Tell us about it below on our Facebook page.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2014 at 10:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.