Redefining Success: Focusing on Your Personal Progress
Stop comparing yourself to others
Photo by magnezis magnestic on Unsplash
LinkedIn, Instagram and other forms of social media make it all too easy to start comparing your career, life and progress with that of your peers. You may be doing well in your career but if you see someone with a similar professional background secure that dream job or promotion, it’s easy to become disgruntled and start questioning yourself and the path that you’re on.
I discussed this with Professor Grace Lordan of the London School Of Economics, the author of the best selling book Think Big, on Episode 6 of the Reframe & Reset Your Career podcast. She told me “One of the most interesting things that comes out of the happiness economics literature for me is that our actual income doesn't have a huge imprint on our happiness, our relative income, relative to the peer group we're comparing ourselves to does and that is really weird so kind of getting people to think about how do I measure progress, what does progress actually look like for me and encouraging people to compare themselves to themselves last week and yesterday and also think about how they're moving towards that Big Thinking goal”.
I love this insight from Grace and am a big advocate of this approach. When I started podcasting, I knew that the first few episodes might not be as good as other podcasters that I admired and that it might take time to build an audience. However, my mindset was to focus on the process and creating the best possible content. I reviewed each episode that I recorded for ways to improve and incorporated them in future recordings, which I still do, and this helped grow my following.
In terms of careers, it may be frustrating if you put in the hard work and you’re not being recognised with the promotion you feel you deserve. I believe that if you keep learning, put in the work and be strategic, improvement will come and hopefully good things should happen either at your current job or by becoming more attractive to potential employers.
Grace’s full podcast interview is available on Apple, Spotify, Google, Podbean and most other major platforms, please look for Episode 6.
Latest Podcast Episode - Kimberly Godbolt
The latest interview (Episode 63) is with Kimberly Godbolt, the joint MD of executive search and staffing company Talented People, which specialises in TV production and the creative industries. She is a fellow podcaster and hosts the terrific The Imposter Club podcast.
In this clip, we talked about why personal branding is crucial to help you stand out, especially in an industry as competitive as the TV industry. Kimberly told me "You have to work hard at giving generously in terms of content and your personality ... you need a presence because if someone wants to look you up and find out about you, or if they're wondering about whether to give you a role or not, they should be able to find something about you that helps them".
Kimberly and I also discussed the following:
🔷 Forgetting your limiting beliefs and just asking: people are more helpful than you think,
🔷 In high pressure situations, don’t dwell on the negative,
🔷 How she got her big break by following up a random opportunity,
🔷 Becoming a director in TV and overcoming people’s preconceptions,
🔷 Building your personal brand by adding value and being generous,
🔷 The difficulties of being a working mother and juggling her career and family,
🔷 Starting a new venture and how a little naivety can be helpful,
🔷 What she looks for in a candidate and their CV and
🔷 Why diverse voices are so important in the TV industry.
The full podcast interview is available on Apple, Spotify, Google, Podbean and most other major platforms, please look for Episode 63.
A huge thank you to all the new subscribers, I appreciate your support, I was a little worried if anyone would be interested! It would be great to hear your thoughts, I am also active on LinkedIn and Twitter, where I post content regularly, feel free to connect with me there.
Thanks also to my good friend Sandy Seeber-Quayle, who gave me some great advice on navigating Substack and has created some terrific content. Have a great week and wishing you well with your career!