#127: How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

So I think that this is a topic that although it was inspired by a question I received on Instagram, it's so universal and so relatable for I think all of us, whether this is something that you really, really struggle with, or maybe you just experience, you know, a regular human amount, as we'll come to shortly, I do think that this is There's something that we're all going to encounter at various points in our life, this tendency to compare, to look over our shoulder, to see what other people

are doing and to see where we stack up relative to that. I do think that it's a very natural tendency, but I also think that some of us definitely go down that vortex more than others and can get really stuck there. And particularly if you're someone who struggles with unworthiness or insecurity, anxiety. I think these can all go hand in hand.

Uh, and not only does that impact our relationship with ourself, you know, our self confidence, our self esteem, um, but it can really bleed into our relationships with others. Uh, again, as we'll come to talk about, I think that there's a lot of overlap. If you were to do a Venn diagram of people who struggle with comparison and low self worth. With people who struggle with anxious attachment, who struggle with jealousy, who struggle with a fear of abandonment.

Uh, all of these things, I think that might not be so obvious in their relationship to each other. Uh, when we start to dig a little deeper, we can see how there's lots of tendrils and webs linking them all together.

So I'm going to be talking about that today, why some of us struggle with comparison more than others, where that might be coming from, and what purpose is that serving, and ultimately how we can start to build a greater sense of self worth, self confidence, in a way that allows us to not become immune to comparison, because as I said, I think we all go there sometimes, I know I certainly do, uh, but In a way that we can be broadly comfortable with who we are, with what we have to offer, with

our value, such that we're not so heavily focused on what everyone else is doing, and how everyone else looks and trying to figure out where we sit on that scale, uh, because I think that's a pretty exhausting way to live and almost always leaves us feeling worse about ourselves, or at least feeling very insecure. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a quick announcement, I'm really excited to be launching a brand new offering.

It's called the Secure Self, and it's a 28 day challenge that's going to be kicking off in Next month. So just before Valentine's day, uh, it's a four week challenge. Um, it's going to be all about a lot of what we're talking about today, building self worth and each week we'll address a different pillar of self worth, different focus area. It's going to be really accessible, uh, both in cost, it's the lowest cost offering that I've had for a while, uh, but also in its delivery.

So I'm going to do audio only lessons, uh, so you can listen to it all on your phone. Uh, it's just going to be a short lesson each week and then a challenge or homework tasks, something like that, an implementation piece, uh, there's going to be a pop up community so you can connect with others who are doing the challenge, which is always a really nice component. Uh, and there'll also be two live calls with me. So there's a lot of value packed into it.

Uh, it's a nice short and sweet one, 28 days. Uh, and I think it's hopefully will appeal to people across the spectrum. No matter your attachment style, no matter whether New to my work or whether you've done everything I've ever released, and this will be quite distinct in, as I said, both the content and the delivery, uh, and I'm really looking forward to it. So early bird enrollment for that is open as of today and the early bird pricing will be available for the next week.

So definitely head to the show notes and check that out if you're interested, or you can go straight to my website, stephaniereick. com, uh, and check out all the details, including. Some more info on each of the themes and stuff like that. So we'd love to see as many of you in there as possible. I think it's going to be really good fun. Okay. So let's talk about comparison.

So as I said at the start, I think I'm always mindful when we talk about comparison or people pleasing or self criticism, any of these things that of course can be really challenging, but also are very human. I don't want you to feel like you have to add that to the list of things that are wrong with you. Oh no. I compare myself to other people. Does that mean that's another thing that I need to fix about myself? Uh, of course we all do this, right?

We do it subconsciously and maybe we do it very consciously. We're aware of other people's appearances or other people's success or other people's relationships. All of these things, I think that we are, whether it's innate or we're all just conditioned to do it. I think having an awareness of. You know, what other people are doing, how they're presenting, how they're living their lives, relative to ours is, is pretty normal.

I think where it can get really challenging is, you know, in this day and age when we have such an oversupply of information and exposure to so many different people and so many different information sources, relationships, all of these things, we're really bombarded. And so there's a lot to feel bad about, you know, it can create this illusion and this sense that everyone else is thriving and I'm not, or everyone else is beautiful and successful and charming and funny, and I'm just average.

Uh, because obviously the the data that we are getting is pretty skewed in that direction because that's, you know, what, what content is pushed to us. And so I think that while this tendency to compare ourselves is a very natural one, uh, it's probably on steroids in our modern culture. Add to that, if you are someone who really struggles with low self worth, I think that you're likely to be really prone to comparison more so than someone who's pretty comfortable within themselves.

And that maybe sounds obvious, but I think that when we really struggle with Believing in our own value and really kind of knowing who we are and what we have to offer and really owning our strengths and our value proposition as a person going, yeah, I'm a great friend and people really like my sense of humor and I'm really good at my job and I'm, you know, smart and I'm loyal and all of those things. We don't tend to do that very often.

We don't tend to take stock of those things and really reflect that back to ourselves because our tendency is to focus on the lack, right? I'm not pretty enough. I'm not thin enough. I'm not successful enough. I'm not rich enough. I don't have the perfect relationship. And that's where our attention goes. And that's really where we then end up feeling pretty shitty about ourselves. That feeds it, right? The low self worth plants the seed or makes us prone or susceptible to that comparison.

Uh, and then it kind of spirals from there because the comparison inevitably feeds the low self worth and so on and so forth. So I think if you know that about yourself, that you're already quite prone to comparison that you have those struggles with self worth, that's just a really good thing to know and to recognize because there's things we can do about that, right? Building self worth is not an overnight thing, but it's absolutely possible.

And I can speak from personal experience that I definitely used to struggle with comparison a lot more than I do now. As I said, I'm not, I'm not free of it now. It's not like I never fall into that trap, but I'm definitely less bothered by it, both on a personal level and certainly in a relationship.

So I did mention that I kind of talk about the relational piece and I think, again, to use myself as an example, when I was younger, before I had done a lot of this work, I was pretty insecure and I was, I found it really easy to fall into that place of comparing myself, particularly to other women in the context of relationships and feeling kind of subtly threatened by most other women.

Uh, or even the women that I didn't feel threatened by, it was because I'd gone through a process of comparing myself to them and deciding that I didn't need to be threatened by them. But that was still, you know, still in that mindset of assessing everyone as a competitor or a potential threat to how I felt about myself and how comfortable I felt in my relationship, uh, and that was pretty exhausting, right?

When I look back on that now, I can see that a lot of that was coming from a place of low self worth and not really believing in my value, thinking that everyone had something that I didn't, and really, really feeling that sense of not enough. I'm not enough of this. I'm not, you know, attractive enough. I'm not funny enough. I'm not cool enough.

You know, my clothes aren't as nice as that person, like all of these little things, uh, that just kept me totally on edge and so uncomfortable within myself, uh, that, you know, then I really didn't get to enjoy not only relationships, but kind of friendships and social settings. It just created this constant anxiety because I think when you are in that mode of, you know, sizing people up and, and assessment, it takes you out of presence.

You don't get to just show up as yourself authentically, and connect with other people as themselves authentically. You're always kind of in this mode of not inauthenticity, but performing and assessing and self protection. I don't think that that's really conducive to connecting authentically with others, which is really what we want. And frankly, it just kind of takes the fun out of it.

You know, I think for a lot of us who struggle with social anxiety, which is maybe something we need to do a whole nother episode on because, uh, these days more than ever, I think social anxiety is. It's probably not talked about enough, but it's so, chronic and endemic, uh, a lot of people have a really, really hard time with, socializing, making friends and feeling confident in social settings, which has no doubt been exacerbated by a couple of years of isolation.

But yeah, I think that it feels really complicated. It feels really hard. It feels really intimidating. And the more that we are in this mindset of needing to prove ourselves, uh, and needing to show up in a certain way in order to be impressive or be likable to perform then that anxiety is only going to skyrocket because we put all this pressure on ourselves to be a certain way in order to achieve an outcome rather than just being, uh, and letting that be enough.

So, what do we do with all of this? How do we stop comparing ourselves to others?

Uh, again, I think that there's probably always going to be this lingering thing where we are aware of what other people are doing and we might have a voice inside of us that, you know, does peer over our shoulder, peer over the neighbor's fence, so to speak, and see what other people are up to and how they are going and how that stacks up against what we're doing and how we're going, how we're feeling, um, and either feeling temporarily better about ourselves because we assess ourselves as

superior, uh, or performing better or ticking certain boxes that other people aren't. And so we get that kind of little ego boost or we feel worse about ourselves 'cause we've decided that they're ahead of us or better than us, or superior to us. Um, but either way, I think we're in that egoic kind of mindset that doesn't actually feed us at a deep level. It doesn't feel peaceful.

And it keeps us stuck in that because if you're in that hamster wheel, like you kind of just have to keep playing it, in order, even if you are ahead, you've got to then stay ahead. Whereas I think stepping off the hamster wheel together and opting out of the game is probably a much more fruitful and rewarding way of being. So all of that being said, it's kind of like all roads lead back to building your self worth. And I recognize that that's not like an easy, you know, Oh, great.

I'll just go build my self worth and then everything will be resolved. That's a path and it's work and it's a process, right? A practice we could call it. Um, but it's a really rewarding one. And it's one that I talk about a lot because I think that the ripple effect from focusing on building your self worth into all of these other areas of life.

We can start to see that things like comparison, things like people pleasing things like staying in relationships longer than we should or pursuing relationships with people who are not really aligned or not really interested in us. These all spring out from this place of low self worth. And when we start to work on that in a really sustained way, we really make that a priority. It's amazing how organically all of these other things kind of fall away.

They might not totally disappear, but they just become less relevant to us. They feel like less of a fit. aNd comparison I think is one of them because ultimately comparison is trying to protect us, right? It's just feeding back information because a part of us is convinced that we're in competition with these people and when that's the story that we're telling ourselves, then staying safe means winning. And so we feel like we have to do that.

Um, and we have to kind of beat away all of the threats to our identity and our relationships. And whereas when we step out of that mindset and we really start to grow those seeds of self worth from the ground up. really within ourselves, then, as I said, all of those things just start to feel a little less important. Um, and again, speaking from personal experience, things that I used to really, really struggle with in relationship, like jealousy was a big one. I was so aware of other women.

Even when there was, You know, nothing untoward. There weren't circumstances that warranted that. But I was inwardly just so wary of other women. I felt so threatened by them. And I really don't feel that anymore in my relationship because I trust in my value. And, you know, I trust my partner, but I trust that even if anything were to happen. That, that's not a comment on my worth because I really believe in my worth in a really embodied way.

And I think that that's just quite profoundly healing to do that work and get to that place. Um, where, you know, it's not about like never having wobbly days where you feel a little unsure of yourself or never having social anxiety. I certainly still don't like showing up to a room of people who I don't know. That's not my comfort zone at all.

But just feeling a little bit more anchored in who you are, and letting that be okay and letting that be enough and knowing yourself and just kind of removing some of the heaviness of having to perform or emulate what other people are doing or copy other people or compete with other people because as I said, I think that that just It's really really draining if nothing else. It's an exhausting way of living.

And it's one of those things where like, insecurity begets more insecurity begets more insecurity. The downward spiral is real with all of those things because it really drags us down in our energy, but the inverse is also true. The upward spiral is possible and available, uh, to all of you if that's something that you're really committed to choosing and creating for yourself.

And I should say I have other episodes, it's probably beyond the scope of today, uh, just timing wise, but I do have other episodes on, on the how of building self worth. Uh, if that's something that you're more interested in diving into, you should be able to search that relatively easily and pull up those old episodes that give you a bit more of a roadmap on how you can start building self worth. I also have a free guided meditation on my website on building self worth, I should say.

Uh, so you can go check that out. And of course, if you really want to go all in on this whole self worth thing, the secure self challenge will be starting in about a month, but the early bird pricing is available for the next week. So definitely go check it out if you're interested, if what I've shared today has resonated for you. Um, as I said, I'm, my intention is for it to be really fun, lighthearted. enjoyable program, um, for you to connect with each other, connect with me.

Um, so looking forward to that and looking forward to seeing hopefully lots of you in there. So thank you so much for joining me. I hope today's episode has given you something to think about. It's been helpful for you and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks guys.