Starting a new business can be scary. Taking the leap to working for yourself and pursuing your own goals can feel daunting. So out of fear of failure (and the internet trolls) you decide you have to become an expert before you can start. Which is great! Except you’re letting it hold you back until you feel like you’re an expert of all things. Key word being “you” feel. Then you start looking at others in your field who look like experts. Comparing your business to theirs, your following and engagement, your ads and sales. There’s no comparison, you aren’t in the same place in your business journey.

You can’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle, or your middle to their end.

First things first, when you start comparing you start to lose. You lose momentum and belief in yourself. Negative thoughts start creeping in. “I’ll never be as comfortable as they are on lives.”, “I’ll never have as many people join my Facebook group.”, “I don’t have the expertise and experience so what can I offer anyway.” Honey. I guarantee almost all of today’s experts started with nervous laughter and five people join their first live. We all start at zero and grow. To be honest you may never be completely comfortable on lives or in video. But there are tricks you can learn to get through the nervousness. I’m telling you now that stopping or not even trying isn’t the answer. So let’s take that option right off the table.

You don’t have to know everything anyway – just more than the people you want to help.

Second of all, a big issue with the comparison trap is that you’re looking towards people who are YOUR next step on your business journey. But the people who are looking towards you aren’t where you’re at. They’re looking to you because YOU are THEIR next step in their business journey. Clear as mud right? My point is the need to feel like you’re more of an expert is only coming from you. You don’t have to become an expert in your field. Or feel like you’re an expert right off the bat. You just have to know more than those you’re teaching. And you will undoubtedly know more because they wouldn’t be your students otherwise. Derive confidence in knowing that when you put your offer out there, only those who need it will bite. So to them you are primed to be the expert.

If you’re creating an offer or course it’s because you have experience and something valuable to share. Taking time to learn more can be wonderful and help round out that knowledge. Plus I’m definitely an advocate for continuing to learn and grow. It will only make your offers that much more valuable. But there’s a fine line around adding to your knowledge bank and using it as a crutch to keep from moving forward. There will always be more learning you can do and business strategies will change. Heck I hope you and your business will always continue to evolve and grow! What I’m saying is that there will never be a true end to what you can learn. So if that’s your starting point you’ll never get started.

Your journey becomes a part of your story – don’t wish it away.

Third of all, and a big message from About the Dash, your journey is much more interesting than the destination. One of the reasons we look at certain role models is because they’re inspiring right? They had a goal and they’re showing us how they reached it. If you become an overnight success… well that’s a real short story. A blip really. And can’t very easily be repeated as far as I can tell. I still buy lottery tickets now and then, but the winners are the exceptions to the rule and not the rule itself. A hard lesson to learn sometimes, but a great one to keep in mind.

Your journey in creating and building your business (and one day empire) becomes a part of your war story. You learn about your business and your own strength of will that you can then impart on other new entrepreneurs. And if you work for it you’ll find so much more value in what you create. Not to mention you should have multiple milestones set for your business. Each one you reach builds on the last and towards the next. The journey is the fun, crazy part that we want to follow. Set your future goals and work towards reaching them, that’s a story I want to follow. That’s the story I’ll be able to learn from and that’s the person I’m rooting for. 

So take heart in your climb and document all of the tales and woes.

That way you can inspire others who are in their beginning that aspire to someday reach your middle. Don’t worry about knowing it all, to become an expert in your field will take practice and experience. You won’t know it all at the beginning, no matter how many webinars you watch. Don’t become so caught up in the negative thoughts and need to feel like an expert that it keeps you from starting. Your journey becomes your story, so make it worth reading. And if you need help, you know where to find me!