3. Why Does Their Business Look Easier Than Mine?

Why does everyone else’s business look so much easier than yours? 

You know the feeling. 

You’re scrolling, and it looks like other people are constantly showing up, posting, selling… and it all just works. 

Meanwhile, your business can feel like hard work. 

In this episode, I’m talking about why that feeling shows up (even after years in business), what’s really going on behind the scenes, and why you’re not actually seeing the full picture. 

We also look at the reality of building a business alongside everything else life throws at you - and why “hard” doesn’t always mean something’s wrong. 

If your business feels heavier than it should right now, this will help you see it differently… and make it feel a lot more manageable.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the Girls Mean Business Podcast, where we share business and marketing tips, advice and trade secrets to help you raise your game and build your brilliant business. Get more clarity, more customers, and more sales. Here to show you how your host, Claire Mitchell.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hello, it's Claire from the Girls Meme Business, and today I want to talk about something that I think most of us feel at some point, which is why does everybody else's business look easier than ours? And it's that moment when you're scrolling through Facebook or TikTok or Instagram and looking at somebody else's business and thinking, why does it look so easy for them? You know what I mean? They're always there posting, showing up, selling, their stuff looks good, their launches seem to work. Everything just feels really together. And then you look at your business and think, Why does mine feel like such hard work? And even after like 20 years, I still get that sometimes. Usually when I'm a bit tired or things haven't quite gone how I wanted that week, then I'll see somebody else doing it really well, and then in my brain the mind monkey pops up and says, They've got it sorted, but you haven't. But when I actually think about that properly, when I'm not tired, then I know it's not true because you're not seeing their business. You're just seeing a few tiny pieces of it. You're seeing the posts that worked but not the ones that didn't. You're seeing the thing that sold but not the thing they put out before that nobody bought. You're seeing the version that they were happy to publish and not the half-written drafts or the ones that they overthought for two hours or a notebook full of scribbles where they couldn't make their mind up what to talk about. And even with consistency, you don't know what that looks like behind the scenes. So you're assuming they've got all the time in the world to do this, but it actually might be somebody who sat down on the Sunday at six o'clock in the morning and did six hours in one go because that's the only time that they had. Or somebody who always feels like they're behind, even though from the outside they look like it's all flowing beautifully. And remember, sometimes they've got help. Sometimes there's somebody there editing or posting or organising things, but they don't mention that because why would they? So you end up comparing your whole experience and your whole business to a very small, very tidy version of somebody else's. And remember, you see everything about your business. You see the days where it flows and the days where it doesn't. And you see all the posts that you didn't publish and gave up on. You see the email that you meant to send and didn't, you see the launch that didn't work, and you see the days where you sit down to do something and your brain just isn't working how you wanted. And then you compare that to somebody else's highlight reel and think they've cracked something that you haven't. But there's another part of this that I think is even more important, and that is that most of the women I work with, maybe even you, are not running their business in some nice, clean, empty space. They're fitting it around everything else. I know that I am kids, school runs, teenagers, parents, health stuff, a job that's paying the bills while the business grows, a house that needs running, and all of that takes something from you. Obviously, time, but also energy and headspace. I call it mental bandwidth, and your business gets whatever's left over after all of that. And some weeks there might be quite a lot left over. You feel focused, you get things done, you make progress, and other weeks there's just nothing left. You're running on empty, and everything feels harder than it should, and even simple things feel like effort. And that's the bit I think that we don't account for. We just expect ourselves to show up the same way every week, regardless of what's going on around us. And when we can't, we tell ourselves a story that we're inconsistent or we're not disciplined enough or we're not cut out for this. When actually we're just building a business in the middle of a really full life. So if things feel hard right now, does hard mean something's wrong, or does it just mean that this is actually quite a big thing that you're trying to do alongside everything else? Because those are very different. If something isn't working, then yes, that's useful to look at. But if what you're feeling is just this is a lot, or I'm tired, or I don't have endless time for this, then that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong, it just means you're doing it in real life under real conditions. And when you see it like that, it changes how you feel about it and how you respond. You stop beating yourself up and you start looking at what would make it easier to keep going. Not easier as in effortless, but just doable. Because here's the thing: you don't need to match what somebody else is doing, you just need a version of this that works for you. And actually, only half an hour ago, I was talking to a client on a one-to-one call, and we were talking about this. She'd found somebody with a million followers on Facebook, and she said, their business is different to mine, but they're talking to the same audience. And I said, Well, why don't you just study them, see what they're doing and when, and how they're saying it, and maybe what kind of captions they're putting on there, and then ask yourself, how could I make something like this work for me? What would my version look like? You just need a version of it that works for you. So, next time I want to talk about something that I see all the time, and that is brilliant businesses that nobody knows about, the best kept secrets and why that happens. I'll see you then. That's it from the Girls Mean Business Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Join us for even more fab tips, advice, interviews, and great secrets to help you get more confidence, more clarity, more customers, and more sales. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash the girls mean business and check out our website at www.thegirlsmean business.com. See you next time.