In the first reflection in this series, You’re Not Behind – You’re Carrying More Than Most Systems Were Built For, we spoke briefly about how “looking outward” or comparing your business to others may seem like a responsible thing to do.
However, it become harmful when you begin to measure your pace, offers, or even you confidence against someone else’s. As a reminder, it is just another way of constantly seeking reassurance, validation, or permission before trusting your own internal voice or choice that already aligns with you.
If this resonated, this next layer may feel familiar too.
Once looking outward and comparing your business to other become a part of how you adjust yourself in business, it doesn’t just affect your confidence. It will begin to affect the relationship you have with your own self-trust or internal voice.
Have you noticed a quiet shift in how you relate to your work lately? More second-guessing or more watching what others are doing? Now you are trusting less in your own decisions and the way you chose to run your business?
You are not imagining it.
Why Comparison Shows Up So Quietly for Many of Us
For many business-owning mothers like us, comparing our businesses doesn’t come as a form of jealousy or insecurity. It is much quieter than that. For me, it came as a way to research the competition by researching their SEO, marketing techniques, and even their website layout.
For you, it may have come as simple curiosity, through research, through those moments where you were simply trying to get your footing because you were unsure if you were going by your business correctly. Trust me, I understand completely.
It does start with just an innocent thought of checking to see how other people are doing this or that. You may even say to yourself, “Maybe I’ll get some perspective or better ideas that will finally take my business to the next level.”
Slowly, your attention drifts outward. Decisions that once felt natural begin to feel heavy. Inspirations that come from your own inner clarity starts to require a second opinion.
Looking outward and comparing doesn’t shout – it nudges. Over time, it will quickly replace self-trust as a place you look for validation and direction.
When Comparison in Business Feels Normal—and Why That Matters
Today, running an online business or brand, comparing yourself to others is treated like the natural way to do things. You must watch the market, study what works, and keep up with the latest trends. Most importantly, you must listen to those who are considered industry “experts” or top earners.
On the surface, none of this is wrong. However, the challenge is that comparing online businesses and brands rarely comes with context. We see the polished visuals, the confident messaging, the clean offers, the big announcements. What you don’t see is the childcare support, the financial cushion, the behind-the-scenes help, or the season of life that made that pace possible for the individual.
Furthermore, you don’t see the private realities. The late nights that weren’t sustainable. The years it took to get clear on their marketing techniques and brand messaging. The decisions that didn’t work before the ones that actually did.
As a mother building a business inside real life, that missing context actually matters. Our business isn’t happening in a vacuum.
It is happening between school drop-offs, preparing meals for our families, emotional labor, and the limited energy we have remaining after caring for others as well as ourselves.
So if comparing yourself as a business owner has been leaving you feeling like you should be further along or moving a lot faster than you already are, it doesn’t mean you are failing. You are just trying to remain present in an environment that has been designed to constantly pull your attention away from your own unique inner voice and pace.
Why Business-Owning Mothers Experience Comparison So Deeply
As business-owning mothers, looking outside of ourselves comparing our businesses to others and trusting our inner voice collide often. Especially being that we already making layered decisions daily.
We are not just deciding what content to post, but also deciding what we can realistically carry during the week ahead.
Constantly choosing how our business fits alongside of our families and not just choosing an offer. As business owners and mothers, we are not just building a brand, we are building a life that our family can actually live in.
Comparing yourself to others who does not share your life structure often makes your body feel unstable before your inner voice can talk you out of it. Sometimes it may show up as mental noise and you are unable to focus normally. Repeatedly reevaluating decisions you thought were already settled and feeling as if you are being pulled in multiple directions. As a result, you are unable to tell which idea is actually yours.
On the other hand, it may appear as emotional weight, low-grade guilt or even the sense of being behind. Believing within yourself that everyone else has everything figured out that you haven’t.
All of this can cause you to rush through your ideas and apply pressure where it is not needed. Not energetic pressure, but pressure that convinces you to rebrand over and over again, redo your website, change your marketing tactics, or just hurry up and figure it out.
This is why comparison and looking outward isn’t just a mindset issue, but often a sign that you are carrying a full life and trying to find clarity in a very loud space.
How Comparison in Business Slowly Pulls You Away From Self-Trust
When you begin comparing your business to others, it doesn’t initially feel like you do not know what you are doing. It is more subtle than that. You may feel that other business owners may just know a little bit more than you do. As a result, you may begin to change your offers, your website will not feel aligned with your initial brand message, and now you are seeking a different approach. If you could just figure out what your competitor is doing, you will finally feel confident again.
These questions can lead to healthy refinement, even allowing you to evolve as well as your business. But when those questions are motivated by comparing your business to others, you are often lead to more division or confusion. You start going in too any directions and taking so-called “advice” that doesn’t align with your brand message nor inner voice. This then leads you to piecing together marketing strategies and brand messages from people who are not living the same lifestyle as you. Finally causing you to no longer trust yourself as the unique and amazing business owner you already are.
Trust me when I say that you are not incapable.
You may simply be training yourself to look outward first – even when the answers you need are actually closer than you think.
Why “Just Stop Comparing” Misses the Point
You know, if comparing your business is just a habit, you could probably give it up if you have enough will power. But for many business-owning mothers like ourselves, constant comparison is just another way for us to cope.
Whenever I felt uncertain about my business, comparison felt more like research. It felt like a responsible way to ensure I was making the right decision with what I thought was limited time. This is why being told to “just stop comparing” really doesn’t help. Because it doesn’t address the real internal need, which is clarity and security.
What Am I Hoping Comparison Will Give Me Right Now?
Being still and pausing long enough to gently ask yourself this question, you will often be reassured with an inner voice confirmation.
The internal sense that you are not about to make a mistake. This is what you are really seeking – especially when you’re business a business alongside of motherhood.
Continuing to compare your business with others is an unstable place to find the security you are searching for. They are built on incomplete information or half-truths, highlight reels, and other people’s priorities. Don’t continue to fool yourself by looking outward for answers. The more secure option is being still and listening to your own internal guide.
Self-Trust as a Relationship You Can Rebuild
Self-trust is not what we call a “personality trait”, it is actually an personal relationship with your inner self, your true self. This relationship is built over time through stillness, listening inward, honoring your season, and making decisions that truly fit the present life you are living. At times that relationship may feel shaky in new seasons – not because you are failing, but because you are learning a new layer of your yourself.
Remember, comparison will interrupt that learning. It pulls you away from your inner voice right when you need it most. On top of that, you are already managing a household, schedule, and business, so looking outward for answers that can only come internally can feel exhausting.
You are allowed to lead differently and slow down just enough to hear yourself think.
What Changes When You Return to Self-Trust
When we as business-owning mothers reconnect with our self-trust, the shift is often quiet but also unmistakable. Decisions will begin to feel simpler, may not be easier but clearer. The desire for constant change fades and other people’s success will no longer like a way to measure your personal success.
Business will finally start feeling like it belongs to you again. This is where stability and leadership will begin to grow – not from copying what works for someone else, but from guiding yourself with inner honesty and care.
A Gentle Way Forward—and What Comes Next
If comparing your business to others now seem to be loud or uneasy, you don’t need dot fix yourself. This is simply the first step to remembering how to trust yourself again. Allowing yourself to build a business and brand that fist your real life in its current season. Choose clarity over imitation and move at a pace that honors what you are currently carrying.
If you notice this pattern showing up elsewhere, you’ll find more related reflections here within The Brand Journal.
In the next journal entry in this series, we’ll chat about what it looks like to gently rebuild self-trust after comparison has been driving your business decisions—without burning everything down or starting over.
No louder certainty or rigid rules. Just a steadier, kinder way of leading yourself forward.
Until next time, remember to take time to be still and become familiar with your inner voice.
