Transcript
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Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos.
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We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best.
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It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive.
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Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals.
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Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos.
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Now on to the show.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Organized Chaos and if you're new here, welcome.
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Today we're going to be talking about the comparison game, why we do it and how we can actually use that to our advantage rather than our detriment.
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And yes, we all do it.
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We all, unfortunately, compare ourselves to others and, rather than using their lives as inspiration, we use it as condemnation.
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I mean, how many times have we thought I'm so out of shape, look at her, she's got 99 kids and has the perfect body.
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Or, wow, she's got the perfect life.
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I can't even get my shit together.
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I mean, how many of us have thought something similar to that?
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Now, part of this has to do with the illusion that people are living the perfect life with no struggles, thanks to social media.
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However, what's shown is not the whole story.
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Logically, we know that no one has a perfect life, and we shouldn't be striving for perfection.
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Life isn't about being perfect.
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It's just about living it the way that you want to, that makes you happy, regardless of what anyone says or thinks or wants it to be for you.
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Now, I'm not saying people are fake on social media.
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However, we must not look at the surface and assume that that's all there is.
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So it makes no sense to compare ourselves to anyone.
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There is no comparison, but it is a natural human thing for us to compare ourselves to others.
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Now, the way that most of us take this natural human behavior is that we use it against us.
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So we see other people that are doing better than us and we automatically assume that we're doing worse than them, and we use it as a way to put ourselves down or to just say, okay, I'm going to do this.
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This is proof that I can never do what they do.
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I can never live a life like them.
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So what I want to show you today is how you can actually use comparison as something good, as a way for you to show up and a way for you to do whatever it is that you want to do in your life and use them as an inspiration.
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Now, before I get to that, I want to tell you a story.
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So my kids were in track and field.
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My son started first and when he started I think he might have been eight years old.
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So super cute to see eight-year-olds running around the track or doing sprints.
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Now, when he first started off, he did a few hundred meter dashes and those were super comical the first ones.
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Now he would look at us up at the stands and he would smile at us while we're screaming at him go, go, go, go, go right.
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We were like, oh, you need to focus, you need to look straight ahead.
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But he was so distracted with everybody yelling and he probably felt excited that we were there cheering him on.
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Now, as time went on, he started to focus a little bit more.
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However, his focus shifted to the other kids that he was racing with.
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He would look at the other kids that he was racing against to compare whether or not he was doing well.
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We would have to tell him stop looking at the other kids when you're racing, especially in a sprint, you need to look straight ahead and don't stop until you pass that finish line.
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Now, he would continue to do this and it would distract him, or it would actually make him go into another lane, and it would definitely reduce his times.
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Now, in track and field, although there are other runners and you are racing other runners, this is a sport where you're competing against yourself.
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You are trying to improve your personal record.
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Now, of course, you also have you know medals and things like that, where there's only one person that could have you know first place or second place or third place.
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However, the focus is really on yourself and on improving yourself.
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Now, this is what I'm thinking about when I talk about comparison.
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In using it as inspiration, we're all running our own race.
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We are not running a race against other people.
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We are just trying to improve ourselves.
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So when we see someone else and say, wow, like they're doing amazing, they're so successful, that's a path that I want to take.
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So I'm going to use them as inspiration.
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I'm going to use that as a way to know that I can do it too, that it is possible for me too.
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So, in this sense, you're using this common human behavior as a way to move yourself forward, rather than keeping you stuck or making you feel bad about yourself.
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Now, another thing that we do when it comes to comparison is we compare ourselves to a life or a person that we don't even want or someone we don't even want to be.
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That doesn't make any sense, because why would we compare ourselves to something that is not even a desire for us?
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We just see it as a way to put ourselves down and to maybe reinforce this old story that we have about ourselves, that is, I'm not enough, I'm not good enough or I'm not worthy.
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So if you find yourself constantly comparing yourself to other people or other people's lives, other people's situations, I want to give you a few questions you can ask yourself.
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So, when you feel this way, you ask yourself these questions to kind of put a different perspective on it.
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So maybe we can do some course correction, okay.
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So question number one is what am I making this mean about me?
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Okay, so when you see something that kind of triggers that comparison, what are you making this mean about yourself?
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Number two is if I choose to make this mean something bad about me, how does that make me feel?
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And number three do I want to feel this way Now?
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If the answer is no I don't want to feel a bad emotion then how can I make this inspire me Now?
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It doesn't mean that you have to go this route.
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You could say, no, I don't want to feel this way, and then you can cut it off right there.
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It doesn't need to inspire you, because it could be that that's not something you want, right.
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Need to inspire you because it could be that that's not something you want, right, because we talked about how sometimes we compare ourselves to situations that we don't even desire.
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So you can stop it right there.
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If it makes you feel bad, then you shut your phone off or you move on to something else.
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You don't have to make this inspire you, but if you do want to use it as inspiration, then this gives you the ability to do so by asking these questions.
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So I'll make sure that I put those questions in the show notes so you have them available to you and just use this, use this as a tool to help you move on past comparison.
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So I'm going to leave it right there for you to think about it, and hopefully it will give you the ability to take a bit more control over some of the emotions that we may have when we see other people doing better than us or just kind of giving us that feeling that we are not enough.
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So hopefully that was helpful and I hope you have an amazing rest of the week and I will see you next week.
