The concept of Shine Theory, coined by podcasters and authors Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, is the “practice of mutual investment with the simple premise that “I don’t shine if you don’t shine.” It’s a commitment to collaborating with rather than competing against other people – especially other women.” I believe deeply in Shine Theory.

However, there is no denying that sometimes it’s hard to put into practice. Sometimes you see someone succeeding in something you want to succeed in, and you feel something horrible and rotten. You feel yourself get hot, bothered, tetchy, sad, jealous, like something is being taken away from you. Like someone has reached into your life and stolen the very thing you wanted. It takes a long time to practice keeping your eyes on your own paper. But as online consultant Sara Tasker says: “Nothing blows you off track like watching somebody else’s work more closely than you watch your own.”

A few years ago I became preoccupied with a woman in my industry who was doing similar things to me. I hate to admit it, but I followed her religiously and it was bordering on obsessive. I would start every day by looking at her profile first thing in the morning. Now I look back, and realise, of course, that I was basically setting myself up for failure and bad energy before I’d even got out of bed! Everything I did I compared to her. I felt as if I couldn’t be proud of my achievements, even if they felt really special, because there was someone else out there doing “better”. She sold more books than me. Sold more tickets to events than me. Wore more expensive clothes than me. Had more followers than me. It was just so tempting to look at my work and then directly compare it to hers and feel deflated. I had to seriously re-figure this comparison in my head, because it really didn’t make any sense. We were doing different things, our writing was different, we, as people, were fundamentally different. By taking her piece of the pie, she was not directly taking mine. It took hard work, but I was able to change my perspective and break my unhealthy comparison habit. My life is infinitely better for it.

Comparison is a distraction from reaching our own goals. I find it interesting how my own painful pangs of envy tell me all the information I need to know about what I clearly feel is missing. I used to feel it when someone else got a book deal. Or when someone had just got engaged. I wanted those things. Some find it incredibly painful when a pregnancy announcement is posted, because they want it. For me, I don’t feel envy at pregnancy, and that’s an interesting thing for me to take note of too. Envy can tell us what we want – but what does our lack of envy also tell us? I definitely used to roll my eyes when someone would say, “It’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part”, I remember from a young age wanting to win. Why did so many grown ups try to tell me it didn’t matter? Of course it matters. If it didn’t matter, I thought, then why do badges and trophies and certificates exist? Winning, surely, is everything. As you grow up, you realise there is a more nuanced meaning to what it means to “win”. From the outside, we don’t really know if someone is “winning”. They might have a bigger house than you but be struggling in other parts of their life. Someone might have more money than you but may have inherited it and feel undeserving. You might feel someone is better looking than you – that doesn’t mean that person is happy with their looks.

Everyone’s dreams and goals – and struggles – are different. It’s important to define your own parameters for what you think success is. If you build the racetrack yourself, and you put the finish line of success where you want it to be, you get to win all through your life. When I interviewed one of my favourite writers, Seth Godin, in the early days of my podcast, he said: “I am not here to win, I am here to contribute,” and it’s stayed with me ever since. Shine is not finite, there’s enough shine for everyone.

From Sabotage: How To Silence Your Inner Critic and Get Out of Your Own Way, Emma Gannon, Hodder & Stoughton, €11.15.