You Are Not Behind
Why you keep abandoning projects and how to fix it
When I first started writing online, I’d always see people share stories of how they grew their audiences to over 10,000 followers, and businesses past $10,000/month in revenue. I loved the process of documenting and sharing my ideas in public, it was the reason I started writing online.
But compared to those around me, that just wasn’t enough.
I remember setting a public challenge to get to 1000 followers before the end of the 2021. I did get there in the end, but looking back, I can see the reason I worked so hard at it was because I thought I was failing.
“Only once I cross that mark, then I’ll write better. Then I’ll be able to start my own writing business.”
The niche, timing, and skills didn’t even matter. It was far too easy to compare myself to anyone who looked like they were doing it right.
The Trap
One of my friends launched his own note-taking app two years ago. He’d spent months building the proof of concept, mapping the customer profiles, and writing the perfect landing page. He had everything he needed to keep going and even had his eyes set on a seed round.
But six months in, he stopped posting updates, shut down the site, and moved on.
Three months later, we caught up and I asked him what happened. His response: “Too much competition”. He said there was no way his solo startup could compete with the likes of Notion or Roam research who had raised millions with best-in-class teams from around the world.
He measured his month six against their year six and quit.
That pattern is visible everywhere. You build something you love. Something real. You make genuine progress. Then you see somebody else, miles ahead and convince yourself you’re behind and you have absolutely no chance of catching up. That same project you were once passionate about is left in a graveyard of ideas, simply because you used someone else’s timeline as the standard for yours.
The Change
Measuring your day one against someone else’s day one hundred is never going to work. When that feeling hits, there’s two things you need to remember:
You’re never behind on building your own thing
You’re behind on defining what your thing is supposed to become
We often skip this. Working on something you enjoy means you instinctively lead with emotion and creativity and try to figure out the destination later. But unfortunately without a clear destination, we borrow someone else’s by default. Then even when you do make progress, you’ll likely feel stuck.
Progress toward an undefined destination is just aimless wandering. And when you’re aimlessly wandering, anyone with direction looks like they’re doing the right thing and are on the right track.
What matters most is to understand your own finish line. Is it:
Creative output? How many? Why will you pursue it?
Impact? How will you measure it? Why does that matter?
Revenue? How much? Why that number?
Once you define your destination, how you’re going to approach it, and why it matters to you, you can finally stop measuring yourself against those in their own lane.
The Shift
You’re not behind. You’re on your own timeline, building toward your own destination. And the second you define that destination, the comparison game ends.
Because you’re no longer running someone else’s race.
You’re running yours.
And in your race, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Talk soon,
Pranav
Excellent reminder re running our own race Pranav. Are there instances or times when you think comparison can be a useful thing?