This is Why Comparison is the Thief of Joy

Around Christmas, I stumbled upon an article that eventually led me to start writing on Medium a month later. 

It was about a lady who created her Medium account and, after posting her first article, had made over $13,000. The article went viral, obviously, and she explained how she did it. 

This is the danger of comparing yourself to other writers on Medium who have rapidly grown their follower count by thousands or earned significant amounts of money. 

If I hadn’t read the entire article, I would have assumed she was one of the lucky ones. 

What happened was she was already an experienced writer, having been featured in many prominent publications and large newspapers. This was her career, and she had connections. 

After she wrote her article, which took her several days, she had numerous well-respected authors critique her work and provide their edits.

She then went to some other Medium writers with mega followers and did the same.

Once her article was ready to go, she posted it and then asked her followers to check out her new Medium article. Her well-connected friends also did this for her and posted on their platforms. 

She said she kept this up for many weeks and made thousands on her first post. 

You can understand why you can’t compare yourself to this one individual. 

Her situation is vastly different than 99% of the people here. If you only read part of the article, you’d think, “Wow, I’m a failure compared to this person.” 

That isn’t the case, so keep writing and build the audience you want without sacrificing anything. 

It also helps to have a full-time job, so you aren’t forced to make thousands off Medium to survive. 

This should be something you love, and when you feel yourself burning out, take a step back and relax.

Thank you for reading :)