35. 5 Tips To Get Out of the Comparison Trap
What if I told you that I don' want you to stop comparing yourself to others? *insert side eye emoji* What if I told you that you can use comparison in a way that is actually beneficial? Friend, tune in to this week's episode to learn all about the types of comparison, the harm that it can cause, and 5 actionable tips for getting out of the comparison trap. These include:
Develop awareness
Accept the experience
Reframe
Tune in to yourself
Work on self-mastery
Cultivate your community
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Speaker 1: 0:09
Hello, friend, and welcome to Sturdy Girl, a podcast focused on strength, not size, where you will hear conversations around flexible body image, cultivating confidence and being a resilient human in both body and mind. Sturdy Girl is the podcast where we shift the focus away from your appearance and on to living the big, rad life you deserve. I'm your host, jess Heiss, dropping episodes every Friday, as we help you make the most of your Sturdy Girl summer. That is, reclaiming body confidence, wearing the swimsuit and doing the kinds of activities you want without letting your body or appearance hold you back. Hello, friends, and welcome to episode 35 of Sturdy Girl. It's another solo episode with me, jess. Hopefully these are fun, beneficial. Maybe it's like having your bestie in your back pocket and in your ear holes chatting about fun things, giving some little bits of life advice and life chats.
Speaker 1: 1:05
But hello, I want to talk about comparison today and, I guess, just a little preface to this. I've had a lot of things going on in life lately, a lot of changes, a lot of personal things that I won't bore you with and I'm not trying to withhold, but really it would take an entire hour podcast episode for me to catch you up, for any of it to make sense. So suffice it to say right, when you're going through things and we all are to some degree or not the universe just decided to say hold my beer and give me all the things, which is fine. We're resilient humans. But one thing that I noticed with having things going on in my life that were outside of my control, one of the coping mechanisms, if you will, that I had was I'd find myself grabbing my phone and scrolling social media, and sometimes I wouldn't even realize I was doing it until I was 20 plus minutes deep. Dog videos, book videos, runners, lifters right, it didn't matter. But it was the self-talk that was happening while I was watching those videos and noticing that I was comparing myself or hearing myself think oh, I wish I had that mile time, oh, I want that van life, and then being like, do I really? And it's just really interesting, I've actually I've wanted to do an episode on comparison since we started the Sturdy Girl podcast Gosh almost a year ago. You guys, september will be a year.
Speaker 1: 2:24
I just really felt like I couldn't do it justice, because the understanding of comparison is that it's not a good thing to do, and I hope that in the time it takes to listen to this episode that I can convince you otherwise. Because, yes, comparison can be an absolute bitch, but it's a bitch that's never going away. It is a natural thing we do and sometimes we don't even realize we do it. In this episode, our goal isn't to stop comparing ourselves to others. That's not what I'm going to help you do here. I'm going to help you get out of the comparison trap where it's a negative thing.
Speaker 1: 2:56
But we as humans, naturally will compare ourselves to our former selves and to others, forever and always. It's something that I don't think a lot of people understand. The root of comparison lies in our innate need for connection, for belonging, for validation. We're wired to seek acceptance and approval from our peers, from others. It's natural for us to assess our worth based on achievements, success, possessions, appearances, because this comparison can also be a way for us to figure out who we are, what we're good at, and even figure out where we want to go or do or achieve. So sit with that for a sec while we talk about a couple of different types of comparison, and I'll elaborate a little bit more about the okayness of comparison as soon as we get through a little bit of the info. Part of this Okaypes of comparison.
Speaker 1: 3:44
There's upward and downward comparison, and both can be good and bad. It makes me think of coaching, when I'm working with clients and they'll ask questions and I would venture to say 80 to 90% of the time, maybe more my answer is it depends. That's something with these types of comparison they can be both good or bad. It's like a tool it depends on how you use it. So upward comparison is a way of using other people's accomplishments to determine what our own goals should be. It kills contentment and self-acceptance. There's always someone doing better than we are in one way or another, and if we constantly seek out people to unfavorably compare ourselves to, we'll never feel like we are enough. Truly, there's always more to get out there.
Speaker 1: 4:24
In nearly every study on the damaging effects of social media use, upward social comparison is a key variable Siena was talking about like I want that person's mile time, I want their van life, I want their whatever. When we look to someone who seems more accomplished or high status than us and use their perfection as a stick to beat ourselves up with, we're engaging in that upward social comparison. If you find yourself feeling threatened or judging every time you view a particular influencer or a celebrity or whatever it is, odds are you are comparing. Alternatively, we can use this upward comparison to see our similarities with that person, rather than the differences. We can use their example as inspiration.
Speaker 1: 5:05
When we can see someone like us in some kind of way, who is I'm going to use air quotes here above us, it can give us hope, it can give us motivation, it can help us see that something is possible. It reminds me a friend of mine recently was talking about the concept of manifestation, which I'm not super woo-woo I feel like I'm leaning into the woo the older I get. But within manifestation, there are people in the world called expanders and essentially they help to broaden and expand your worldview of what's possible. And so you can compare upward in a way that helps you to see what's possible. It can provide insight into how a person achieved the goal that you're striving towards and remind you that it is possible. It can give you more perspective. So that is upward comparison. You can use it for good, you can use it for evil.
Speaker 1: 5:57
Downward comparison is the opposite. So you're comparing yourselves to someone who's worse off. In whatever context. And whatever you're comparing to, you know if you are looking at deadlift strength or their mile time or their social status or what kind of car they drive or house they have or whatever it is. It can make you feel better in the moment. I found this really interesting in reading the research. It can improve your well-being, it can make you feel better in that moment, but then most of the time it actually increases the negative feels frustration, isolation, low self-esteem, etc. So I don't know, I am not a psychologist, but it would seem to me that more often than not, downward comparison would maybe give you a false sense of status and not be long lasting. So another reason I created this podcast episode.
Speaker 1: 6:44
But one other thing that I wanted to mention before I get into what we can do to improve the way we compare is talking about some of the ill effects of comparison. So one they take up too much time. It is so easy to get into this spiral of comparison, but if you remember back to chatting with Jess Cahill, we have 4,000 weeks. We have an average of 75 summers in our entire lives. Do you really want to waste any of that time thinking about other people and comparing yourself to them or comparing yourself to your former glory days of that smaller body, faster runtimes, whatever the heck it was, do you?
Speaker 1: 7:22
Secondly, comparisons are inherently unfair. You see that post, that reel, that whatever video. What do you really know about the person you're comparing yourself to? What do you really know, besides what they're showing you? And what assumptions are you making? Third, they generally require metrics, measuring sticks of some kind, right? How much money, how many followers, what brand of clothing, what size body, how much weight? How fast are you running? Do we really want to fall down that rabbit hole? Fourth, they put the focus on the wrong person. You're spending the time comparing yourselves to other people instead of spending time thinking about how you can improve you or what you actually want. And fifth, they can result in resentment. This is self-explanatory, right. If we fall down that comparison trap, we can increase the negative feels we have about ourselves, about our accomplishments, about our bodies, whatever we happen to be comparing about. We can make it a heck of a lot worse if we're ruminating. And then what? All of the ill effects to say, all right, what can we do about comparison? We've learned that it's normal and part of being human to compare. Hopefully, mold that over enough to be like okay, jess, comparison is normal, I don't have to get rid of it, it's never going to go away. So how do we use it effectively? So there's helpful ways and there's not so helpful ways.
Speaker 1: 8:37
The first thing that I want to mention is developing awareness. Now, if you listen to any other Sturdy Girl episodes, you know that the first step of working on body image, of working on self-confidence, working on so many skills that first step is awareness. Of working on self-confidence, working on so many skills that first step is awareness. But with this comparison, is that tuning into your thoughts or your actions? Oh, can you catch yourself comparing? Is it on social media? Is it when you get around groups or people you haven't seen in a while, or family you haven't seen in a while? Can you stop yourself and you're like, oh hey, I noticed this. Who am I comparing myself to? Does this help me? Are my comparisons biased, right? What do I know about this person? So it's developing the awareness and then it's checking it. How am I assessing this person? What do I know? What am I failing to take into consideration? Again, if we decide, is this a positive or negative comparison, right? Does it spark anxiety or feelings of shame. Does it cause me to engage in more like continue that self-comparison spiral, if you will?
Speaker 1: 9:34
So mindfulness around when you're doing it, what situations, what circumstances, thought patterns, like what kind of things are triggers for us to notice that we start to compare? I can speak to sponsoring a powerlifting meet last weekend, which was amazing and had so many great conversations about what it means to be a sturdy girl and live a sturdy life. But, man, I have not been in a focus powerlifting season for months, and so seeing all these strong humans and I noticed that comparison come up and I realized so two things. One, I was so incredibly stoked for all these humans coming and talking to me about their wins of the day platform PRs, winning their weight class, whatever it might be, or just going out and giving it their all, and so that comparison was like oh man, I miss competing. There wasn't any negative comparison. It was that aspiration, if you will, of maybe I want to get back on the platform.
Speaker 1: 10:28
What would that look like? But it's awareness and mindfulness of other situations. Are there people that you're around or that you see on social media? Are there environments that trigger that comparing? And if social media seems to be a trigger. How can we look at setting better boundaries for how we spend our time online? Is it moving the app off of our home screen so you have to dig deeper to get to it? Is it deleting it on certain days or times or giving yourself parameters on amount of time a day? Is it just that awareness to go?
Speaker 1: 11:01
Oh, I'm falling into the comparison trap again. This is catching it. It's a form of self-reflection and it's noticing. Ok, if we are aware suddenly that these certain situations are bringing it up. What kind of comparison Is that? Upward or downward? What kind of feelings does it bring up when we're comparing? Why did it crop up? One thing I want to point out too. We're midway through summer, and that is especially social media and maybe in person too, depending on your activities. You're seeing more bodies and more skin with summer clothes, swimsuits, and that can be a trigger for that comparison piece. For a lot of people, it can add to the appearance pressure we may feel to look a certain way. So again, first step developing awareness.
Speaker 1: 11:44
So the next thing here is accepting the experience and the emotions. So if you catch yourself in this let's say upward comparison, and it's going in a negative direction. You've got yourself in somewhat of a spiral and you're going to notice oh, in this comparison game again, god, I'm beating myself up. Right now. You're accepting the experience, you're accepting those thoughts that have come up, but you're not. You don't have to identify with them, you don't have to accept them as truth, right? Just acknowledge that they've come up, validate what you're experiencing instead of dismissing it or being upset at yourself. That it happened and I think that's really key here is okay. We're saying notice, but a lot of people will notice. They'll continue beating themselves up and push it aside. And so accepting, acknowledging, noticing, because then from there we can choose to reframe this.
Speaker 1: 12:31
What can this comparison teach me? Think of it like research in a way, because you can learn about yourself in these instances. What emotion did this person yourself comparing right, the more you can start deciding what you do and don't want in life. You can use this comparison as simply information. It's your research. You're learning more about yourself. Like I said earlier, when I was like, oh my God, I want their van life, I like stopped myself and I'm like do you want their van life? Is that something you actually want for yourself? Actually, not really. I don't really see myself living out of a van. It looks really cool. Everyone makes it look really cool. I don't know that that's necessarily for me. Okay, let's move on. It's information.
Speaker 1: 13:25
I think, too, in the context of positive upward comparison, there is a human on social media who does not know I exist and she is an amazing CrossFitter. I'm not a CrossFitter. I have tried it for like six months at a time three different times in the past. But this particular human is a similar stature to I am, but incredibly muscular, and I just think it's so rad when humans focus on getting stronger and yes, for health and for all these things. But this person it's Kelsey Keel on Instagram, or I think it's Kelsey Keel is her Instagram page. But this is who I'm talking about Just incredibly fit, human and so kind and just this great person. And so when I initially started following her, I had to question myself like OK, dude, are you jealous and you want to look like her? Or is this like, oh my gosh, this person had how many years of hard work and dedication, worked their ass off to get to where the level they are today? That's absolutely possible for whoever wants to put in the time and energy and dedication, like, oh yeah, actually that's what. That is Right, so it can be positive, even if you question yourself at first. Okay, derailed myself a little bit because I adore Kels Kiel and like maybe I'll tag her in this to be like hi, friend, you're a sturdy girl like us, okay.
Speaker 1: 14:43
But next point, tuning into yourself. So often comparison whether it ends up being upward, downward, positive, negative turns our attention, our focus, our energy onto another person, onto their appearance, their life, their privileges, their possessions, whatever it might be, their skills. And we've shifted the focus away from ourselves. Remind yourself what you are capable of. Your looks, your appearance do not define your worth. If we take the time tuning into ourselves, set our own personal goals that can take the energy away from the comparison. Refocus on what you really want out of life, what you care about, what you value, and maybe the person, the situation, the whatever you're seeing and comparing to can give you information into what you value, into what you want out of life and what you care about. There's that piece, and then it's also turning the focus inward what do you have, what are you proud of, what do you value? We talk a lot about core values on this podcast, because those are like our compass to guide us in the direction we want to go.
Speaker 1: 15:48
And then two other tips I have as far as using comparison, and I'm sorry that none of these are just like snap your fingers, easy to apply. But this point is a little more involved with self-exploration and that's self-mastery. Nothing kills confidence faster than comparison. You can't compete with other people when your confidence is built on self-mastery. So can you get excited about this level of self-discovery, of figuring out the things that make you happy, indulging in levels of self-expression? Compare yourself with yourself If you need to redirect, and the comparison to other people is just not positive, for whatever reason. Can you strive to be the best version of you, strive to take the best care of you? And this, the comparison game, can call into question feelings of whether you're doing enough. Have enough, say enough. When we work on this self-mastery piece, we can instead return our focus and energy onto the good in our world here Because, friend, you have a lot more than you think. So I guess self-mastery really ties into that piece of tuning into yourself as well. So maybe that's like a sub point.
Speaker 1: 17:00
But the last tip I have is to cultivate your community, paying attention to how you feel around different people surrounding yourself, with the people who are striving for similar goals, who value similar things, who are taking part in the activities that you're trying to get into or find yourself drawn towards. I feel like ever since the pandemic, community and social interaction, in-person interaction, has been more important than ever. I just recently went on a girls retreat in Lake Tahoe and that in-person connection is so amazing. Yes, there are online communities and those connections can be great, but I think we as humans learned a lot from the isolation of the pandemic to know that human interaction is so, so necessary for our health. So turn towards people who can provide solidarity, advice, professional help. That can also be an insight that you find yourself. If this comparison is just affecting your mental health, there are absolutely people who can work with you on that. So those are my recommendations.
Speaker 1: 17:54
I also okay, I'm going to put this out there and, if it is a double thumbs up, yes, I want you to shoot me a message on the link in the show notes that says send me a message to tell me you're interested. But I would love to start a sturdy girl community where sturdy, rad humans can show off the fun things that they're doing, big and small. The ways that they are romanticizing their lives, like our episode from last week. The ways that they are using comparison in a positive way. Connecting yes, I said online's not as great as in person, but it's a place to start. If this is something where you're like heck yes, jess, let's have more conversations online in our own community thumbs up in a message link is in the show notes, or if you have questions or suggestions or anything. We love getting these messages. We had about a dozen come through last weekend and they are so fun to read, maybe I'll start sharing them on social media too, if anyone sends fun messages.
Speaker 1: 18:45
Okay, those are your five ways to work on making comparison work. For you. Getting out of that comparison trap is, remember, we will never stop comparing ourselves to others. We are human. It is human nature. In some circumstances that comparison can be useful. So the five tips, just as a recap develop awareness, accept the experience, reframe self-mastery and cultivating community Friends I'm not going to compare, you're going to compare. And cultivating community Friends I'm gonna compare, you're gonna compare, it's gonna be okay. I feel like I know I wrote the entire outline for this episode. I know that I was the one that did the research, but even just talking through this and talking to you right now, it has sparked so many ideas in my brain for ways to utilize comparison in a healthier way, so I hope that it's helped you too. It's been great chatting friends. Thanks for another great episode Again. Always love to hear your thoughts. Always love seeing Apple podcast reviews come through. I will talk to you next Friday. Have a good one, friends.