Tonight I started to feel discouraged as I looked through the progress that some of my fellow writers in the current Ship 30 for 30 cohort have made in the last couple of weeks.

When we start feeling down like this it's easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole and stay down. But this time, I managed to catch the spiral before it got too bad. I realized what was going on, found the truth amid my brain's lies, and am going to follow it instead.

I was comparing myself to others, and it was about to destroy my consistency.

Seeing other writers' follower counts, likes, and interactions on their posts made me disappointed that I haven't been seeing the same results.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. Because I'm on a different journey. Mine might be slower than theirs. And that's okay.

Not to mention that life circumstances have made it hard to write with more intention and connect with others as I've been wanting to.

Stopping this downward spiral begins when we catch ourselves in dysfunctional thinking.

You have to constantly be asking yourself "am I telling myself the truth here, or is this a distortion of reality that's putting me down?"

I was lying to myself thinking that I had to be at the same level as other writers, or that I wasn't good enough if I didn't have the same number of followers.

After we catch ourselves in spiraling thoughts like this, we must recognize the big truth that if we were to stay consistent at this for a few years, success would almost be inevitable.

Rarely, if ever, do we see anybody who sticks to a goal for 5+ years that doesn't make it.

Look at my friend Tim Denning, who has amassed tens of thousands of followers, hundreds of millions of views, and 7 figures in revenue from his writing. All because he stayed consistent even when he wasn't good at first.

My friend Ayo has the same philosophy and has seen similar growth. From nothing to hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few years. All from ignoring the trap of comparison and sticking to consistency.

And Nik Goke, who has been a good friend for years, has seen the same thing.

They've all made it simply because they didn't stop.

All you have to do to follow their path is keep going, even when it seems like you're not seeing any results.