Fashion Business Owner Musings: The Goal is to Improve

startup fashion business owner musings

I’ve written about business comparison in the past. It’s a real pain in the ass. As business owners we are constantly comparing ourselves to others; we look at their social media feeds and feel envy, we see that they’ve gotten into a new store or launched a new website and the jealousy starts to creep in. It’s natural to feel this way, sure, but it’s not fun.

I talked about all of this the last time I wrote about comparison but in my last article, I missed a big fat point. I missed something that honestly I hadn’t yet been thinking about. I missed this:

The goal is always to improve. The comparison we should be doing is with ourselves.

That’s right, compare yourself to yourself. Compare your business to your business. Compare where you were a year ago, to where you are right now.

rather than letting yourself get caught up in what others are doing, accomplishing, winning, and succeeding in, what about if you started writing down all those things about yourself. And when those comparison-focused feeling start bubbling up (you know, when you open Instagram), jot down your own accomplishments.

That is so damn powerful. Think about it — whether you are building your fashion business or growing it, you are in a constant state of learning. You’re learning by example, you’re learning by experience, you’re learning by education. And all this learning is making it so that what you knew then compared to what you know now, is mind-boggling. By comparing yourself to yourself , it becomes so freaking clear how far you’ve come.

When you shift from comparing yourself and your business to others and start comparing them to yourself and your own business, you can see how much you’ve improved. You can see how far you’ve come. You can see what you’ve accomplished.

And I’ll tell you what– that comparison results in a much different feeling. Instead of feeling ashamed, not good enough, behind, and deflated, you feel excited, impressed, proud, and motivated. 

You’re suddenly looking inward instead of outward and realizing that in a short time you’ve managed to do big things.

And beyond that you feel a confidence that impresses upon you all that you’re capable of, causing you to get out there and keep moving, keep doing, keep going, because you know that all that you’re capable of hasn’t yet been reached. You know that there’s so much more inside that you’re ready and thrilled to pursue. And what an incredible feeling that is!

Lots of love and encouragement,

-Nicole
Nicole Giordano

Nicole is the founder of StartUp FASHION, an online resource and community supporting for independent designers around the world with building their businesses. A deep love for the craft of fashion paired with an adamant belief that success is defined by the individual, led her to found StartUp FASHION, where she helps independent designers and makers screw the traditional fashion business rules, create their own paths, and build businesses they truly love. More than anything else, she’s in the business of encouragement and works every day to remind makers and designers that they have something special to offer the world and that they can, in fact, do this thing!