052: The Comparison Trap: 4 Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Writers
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The Comparison Trap: 4 Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Writers
Hello, welcome to the podcast. This is an episode that I'm recording that day before it's released, I was traveling and busy with client work and just kind of got behind on my podcasting. So I created a poll on Tiktok and Instagram, asking people what topic they want to see this week. And the winner was the comparison trap, which I'm excited to talk about because this is something that's really come up a lot with coaching clients, a few of my coaching clients, and also a little bit in the blank page to book membership. I get content ideas, you know, ideas for the podcast from all kinds of places, my own experience clients, social media, just stuff, I see stuff, I'm thinking about a lot or stuff that I've you know experienced, mistakes I've made all that kind of stuff. But yeah, comparison is just something that really, really comes up a lot, especially for new writers who are kind of like going through this process of, you know, looking at their own writing for the first time and being like, wait a second, this really doesn't measure up to this other writer over here.
So I'm gonna give you four tips for how to kind of get out of this comparison trap, how to stop comparing, like with anything mindset related, this isn't a one and done process where you take these steps and you're like, boom, I'm good. It's it's a continual process, it's going to ebb and flow, you're gonna have days where this feels more pressing and urgent than other days. But before we dive into those four tips, I want to just talk about what I mean when I say the comparison trap. The comparison trap is basically comparing yourself to another writer, this can come up in a few different ways, this can be comparing yourself to a writer who is much farther along than you are. So maybe if you're just starting to write your first book, you're comparing yourself to, I don't know, a New York Times bestselling author who has been doing this for years and has written 15 books.
Or it could be also just, you know, maybe comparing yourself to another new writer or someone who just published their first book, but maybe is a little bit you know, a little bit farther along in the process than you are. Maybe this is you comparing yourself to another writer that you know, maybe you beta read, or you swap you know, writing with someone, and you compare your writing to theirs. And it's a trap, because comparison can really keep us stuck. It can help it can have us being super critical of our work. And there's something so isolating about all of these mindset pieces where we feel like maybe we're the only one who experiences this. And that's another big reason why I wanted to talk about this because this is so common. This is so so common, just like self doubt, and impostor syndrome, and all of these other things. And of course, self doubt and impostor syndrome, you know, they're all kind of overlapping with comparison.
But yeah, comparison can be really damaging. So here are four tips for how to get out of this for how to stop comparing yourself to other people. My first tip is put blinders on while you're writing. What I mean by this is, you are so laser focused on your own writing, that it does not matter what other people are doing. It does not matter. Books that are coming out books that other writers you know are working on, it doesn't matter, you are just focused on getting the first draft out, you are focused on figuring out what the story is what the story is going to be. And that is where your energy is going. Okay, you have blinders on you are laser focused.
Some writers, when they are drafting don't read, well one of two things they don't read at all: they don't read books while they're drafting, or they don't read in the genre that they're writing in. And this helps so that they don't accidentally kind of pick up the voice or something from another book, but it's also to kind of prevent all of this noise of like, well, you know, for me, for example, this this book, scoop my second book that I wrote was is a psychological thriller, so I could have easily read a bunch of psychological thrillers while I was writing that and I could have been like, oh my gosh, these are so good. How is my book ever going to be like this or? Well, this one has a twist at this point in the book, so I should probably do that as well and just kind of like constantly looking at my draft to see how and seeing how it measures up, or doesn't measure up to these other books that I'm reading.
Now, I don't do this, I don't stop reading when I'm drafting just because, you know, drafting for me can take, well, sometimes it doesn't take long, but I don't know, sometimes it can take longer, it just kind of ebbs and flows. And, you know, for me to not read a book at all, during that period, it's just not realistic, and it doesn't feel good to me. So that's not something that I've decided to do. But I do know writers who do that and just say, okay, for these three months, or six months or whatever, while I'm getting this first draft out, I'm not going to read, you know, two years, whatever the length of time is, that doesn't matter.
So that's an option on if you if you want to do that, or just literally picture your horse with blinders on, you're only focused on your book. My second tip is to kind of reframe the idea of comparison. So instead of looking at other writers, whether it's a writer who has just published their first book, or a writer who is, you know, has written multiple best selling series, and is like the kind of writer that you want to be one day, instead of comparing your draft to their finished published polished book, what if you reframed it, and looked at those writers looked at those authors as proof that what you want is possible, as proof that all of those good things are coming for you. And kind of like reframing it.
So instead of some, some comparison, or maybe even some jealousy, or some envy coming up, it can be this sense of excitement and like gratitude, like, Wow, I'm so happy that this person who is a debut writer, you know, they self published their book, and there are a number one new release on Amazon, or they self-publish their book, and they feel really proud. Or they got an agent and they've got, you know, a book deal. Whatever the thing is, like, just feel so excited for that person. It's exciting when other writers experience success or accomplish things that you want to accomplish, even if you take, you know, kind of separate it from the idea of quote, unquote, success, because that looks different for different people, someone writing their first book, and like finishing it and publishing it, that's coming for you, you are going to be there soon. So there can be this level of like excitement and joy for that other person, because you know, it's coming for you.
My third tip is to assess your strengths. What are your assets, as a writer, this requires getting honest with yourself with yourself, this requires kind of taking a step back and looking at your work objectively. And if you're not at the point where you can do that, if you're like, why I'm only outlining my book, I haven't even started writing, how can I assess my strengths, that's okay, this might be a tip to just file away for later, if you have started writing, there's a good chance that you will be able to identify something that you're doing well, and maybe it's something totally small, maybe it's like, you know what, this one character, their dialogue, I feel like their dialogue is super authentic and real. That's awesome. That is a strength. Not every writer can do that. Not every writer is natural at writing dialogue. That's a strength that you have that other writers don't have. So when you're comparing yourself to another writer, you have to kind of remember that we all have different abilities, we all have different strengths. And something that comes natural to you as a writer is going to be something that someone else struggles with, right?
Me for example, I didn't even fully realize this until I was maybe done writing my first book, and was starting to let people read it and it was starting to let people in my writing group read my second book, like very early, you know, a chapter of it or something. Someone commented that I was very good at creating an air of tension and suspense, that there's something in my writing that creates this really heightened tense state. And I sort of could identify that I was doing that well, but hearing someone else say that really kind of made it like it really hit home for me that that was something I was good at. And a lot of times I don't even realize that I'm doing it. It's just kind of a natural ability for me as a writer.
And you know, I talked I mentioned like you assessing your strengths. This could also be like I mentioned getting feedback from other people. This could also be once you let people read your work. Maybe you've got beta readers, maybe you've got someone you can go to you can also you know, people can reflect back to you what your strengths are as a writer so you can kind of sometimes get an idea of it that way. But I think it's helpful to do that on your own. For me, a one of my something that's not very, it's not one of my strong suits, I guess, is romantic relationships, I struggle writing partnerships. It's something I really have to work at to create a dynamic between two people. And it's just not something that comes naturally to me. It's why I don't write romance. I have a romantic kind of subplot in one of my books, but it's, it's more a character has a relationship an existing relationship when the book opens and then that relationship kind of falls apart. Like that's a little bit easier for me to easier for me to write maybe. But yeah, I'm not created in writing romance, kind of like tension between two people and conflict between between two people, and letting the reader into this dynamic. It's just not one of my strong suits. So it would be easy for me to look at at writers who do that so well in in a way that seems natural and be like, Oh, my gosh, why can't I do that. But it's okay.
Like I mentioned, I know that I have other strengths as a writer. So I don't need to be good at all the things relating to writing. So assess your strengths. And when you start to get that voice saying, Oh, well, this writer does this, or they're so much farther ahead, they're so much better. Just remember that you have strength as strengths as a writer that you know, other people don't have. And it's just not really a fair comparison. And the whole fair comparison thing is actually my fourth tip, with which the tip is just to remember that you cannot compare your first draft to someone's polished, published book, stop making that comparison, if you find that your your brain starts going down that road, you look at your draft, that you're halfway through writing, and you open up a best selling book in your genre, and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is so much better than than the book that I'm writing.
Nope, it's not, it's like, comparing two different species just can't, you just can't do it, you have no idea what that draft was like of that that published book, you have no idea how messy it was, how chaotic it was, how many revisions the author had to go through how much outside help they had in terms of like coaching, or editing or beta readers or whatever, you really don't know how much work something has gone through. And it's just not a fair comparison. And again, like even if the person didn't go through a lot, but they just had someone polish, like copy, edit, where they cleaned up the grammar and punctuation and all of that, that's going to affect your reading experience as well. If you read whether it's a self published book, or a traditionally published book doesn't matter, your experience of reading that is going to look different when you know compared to the experience of reading your rough draft, which is just a rough draft, No one sits down at the computer and hammers out a full novel and then boom, hits publish, and they're done. That does not happen. I don't care how successful you are, I don't care how many books you have, have written, there's at least a small bit of editing or vision going back to read over it. Again, that happens in the process. So it's a just not a fair comparison.
So that last tip is really important, just keeping that in mind that you cannot compare those two things. For those of you who are listening and have a published book already, maybe you're listening to this because you've released your book, and you're still having lots of comparison, comparing comparing that book that's been released already to another book or to the you know, you're comparing yourself and your career as a writer to someone else. I think there's a there's a piece of this, and just kind of accepting that everyone's journey is going to look different, and accepting that we each have. I mean, I feel like I'm repeating myself a little bit here with the idea of assessing your strengths. But we each have our own kind of abilities and gifts as writers.
I know that for myself, I'm constantly comparing myself, well, I shouldn't say constantly, not so much anymore. But I used to compare myself to very literary writers and I would look at my own writing. And my writing style is not super literary in the sense that I don't have these beautifully elaborate constructed sentences that are really sophisticated and elevated, I don't use a lot of like poetic language. That's just not how I write. It's not how I really want to write and so for me to look at writers who do that, who write that way and write well, you know, I think some of this is just recognizing that we have different styles and voices. And you know, it's just, it's comparing apples and bananas. I don't know what's his name? apples to oranges. Yeah, it's just it's comparing voice and style and things that are just different, they're not better or worse, they're simply different. So if you're comparing your writing style and voice to someone else, then you know, there might be some recognizing that and accepting that we just have different writing styles and strengths and all of that.
And I think too, for me, an important piece of this has been recognizing that my writing will continue to get better, the more that I write, I found myself very frustrated in the beginning, when I was starting to write that what was in my head wasn't really being translated onto the page very well, and that my writing wasn't as sophisticated as I wanted. And I had to kind of just accept that, like, I was going to continue to get better. The more that I wrote, with every single story that I tell every book that I write, like, all of this work that I've done over these last years, is all helping me, me get better. So when I compare my writing ability to someone who has been writing for 35 years, and he has, you know, 15 published books, and as a New York Times bestselling author, and all of that, it's like, well, of course, my writing ability is maybe not going to be as good as theirs, because they've been doing it for longer, they publish more books, like, of course, you know. So I think there's something in here to about just accepting where you're at in your journey.
And if this is your first book, if you're writing your first book, like it's your first book, you're going to continue to improve, you're going to continue to get better, doesn't mean you can't have like a totally friggin awesome book right out of the gate. But it's just the the remember that you will continue to improve, the more that you do this, I have kind of a half tip, a bonus tip going off of the idea of like blinders on while writing, which is the idea of protecting your energy and setting boundaries around the types of content that you consume, or the conversations that you have. If it's a particularly rough day for you, where you're just not feeling great about your work, you're not feeling great about your writing, you're doing lots of comparison. And you need to kind of protect your energy and not go on social media and hear other writers talking about their success, or how many books they publish, or I don't know, whatever is going to kind of like trigger you a little bit or make it worse, protect your mental health, protect your energy, maybe that's not the best time to be, you know, going down the rabbit hole and looking at how successful and how much better, you know, other writers are doing. Even if it's just, you know, you think they're doing better.
That can kind of help to not that you want to avoid, like I don't think it's it's a good idea to just protect yourself completely at all moments of the day, every day, from other people talking about things. You know, if you do get triggered by something that someone shares on social media, that's an opportunity for you to examine why that is causing that reaction in you. But again, if you're having one of those days, where you're just in a shitty mood and your mental health, it's it's is bad, like, you know, don't make it worse by going on social media and like feeding into that comparison. So there's a little bit around kind of protecting your energy as well. So again, like I said, In the beginning, comparison is one of those things that unfortunately, is not a one a done deal. It's going to happen, it's going to continue to happen. But I think knowing how to navigate it, and also just naming it like naming the fact that Oh, right now what I'm doing this like hamster wheel in my head, this is comparison, I'm comparing myself to another writer, that can sometimes take some of the power out of it as well.
Alright, thank you for listening. I hope this helps when you're in falling into that comparison trap, and I will see you all next week.