Focus on your own shit

Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of focusing on personal goals and serving one's own audience rather than getting distracted by competitors and social media comparisons.

Abstract

The author begins their day by checking various social platforms, only to find themselves comparing their progress with others, leading to stress and negative emotions. The article highlights that this stress, triggered by the release of adrenaline and cortisol, is counterproductive and detrimental to one's health. It suggests that to break free from this cycle, individuals should concentrate on providing value to their users and improving their skills and products. The key advice is to ignore external distractions and focus on one's own work to truly make a positive impact.

Opinions

Comparing oneself to others on social media platforms like Product Hunt, Twitter, and Medium can lead to unproductive stress and emotions like jealousy and anger.
The physiological response to stress, while once beneficial for survival, is now often triggered by non-life-threatening situations and can be harmful to one's well-being.
Obsessing over what others are doing is a distraction from creating and serving customers effectively.
The only way to improve one's situation is by focusing on the needs and desires of one's audience and continuously improving one's skills and products.
The article advocates for a singular focus on personal projects and growth, suggesting that this is the path to success and fulfillment.

Focus on your own shit

My eyes crack open. 7am. Roll over. Grab my phone. Start scrolling…

Check Product Hunt. Ahh, shit. Someone just launched an app similar to my product (and we’re still in beta).

Scroll through Twitter. Shit! This person I’m jealous of just announced a another success.

Read Medium. Fuck. Someone wrote a post almost identical to what I wrote months ago and they’re getting more traction.

My envy grows large, my blood pressure goes up. I feel like I’m waking up in a heavy cloud; an agitated haze. Already on edge, and I haven’t even made toast yet.

Stress is our body’s defence against bad news. It was useful when our ancestors were running around the jungle about to be eaten. It’s much less helpful now.

The problem is that the worry itself can harm you as much as the outcome you’re worried about. While you’re stressing over what might happen, your body is releasing adrenaline and cortisol as if you were actually in danger. – Under Pressure: Your Brain on Conflict, Psychology Today

These hormones are what cause intense feelings: jealousy, anger, sadness, despair.

But even worse, they reduce your ability to make great stuff. Instead of putting your energy into creating, you’re obsessing about things you can’t change.

Here’s how to get out of that negative download spiral:

Quit worrying about what everyone else is doing. Focus on how you’re helping people.

Agonizing over your competition doesn’t help you serve your customers better. Being jealous of your peers won’t improve your craft.

There’s only two things that will improve your situation:

Concentrate on your users, audience, customers, fans. Figure out what they want. Develop a deep connection with them. Build trust.

Improve your skill, expertise, competence, product. How can you get better? How can you make your product better for the people who use it?

Focus on your own shit and ignore everything else.

(You can also give it some ♥ below and help others on Medium find it)

Originally published at justinjackson.ca on Feb 29, 2016.