Do THIS If You're Comparing Yourself to Others

I mean, I fall into this all the time and I think it probably happens for people who spend a lot of time on social media, which is comparing or saying, I'm not enough. And then seeing these metrics, like these external figures that are saying you're not enough because you're like, well, I only got this many views and they got this many views. It's terrible for your self-esteem. And then it gets really easy to try to tweak the version of yourself to get more engagement. And then you're kind of giving away pieces of yourself and your authenticity in doing so.

Yeah.

It's like, how do you take the feedback constructively without sacrificing your authenticity?

Wow, that's a big question. I mean, where my mind goes when we're having this conversation is I believe maybe we could have a— everyone has a to-do list, right? And I think we should work really focused and Relentlessly, I'm building a not-to-do list.

Mm-hmm.

You know, certain things that you don't want to, you know, put your energy towards. It's easy to say, you know, don't compare yourself to others, you know, but part of how we identify ourselves is how we stand out, you know, and how we fit in. Right. And interesting, as a child thinking about it, I haven't really thought about it, but, you know, I desire to fit in. But we also have this desire to also stand out. When it comes to caring what other people think, I really do believe fundamentally how we present ourselves, it takes a lot of energy, right? It's like all this energy we sometimes put into the image we want to put out there, right? And then there's this more energy also put into the person that we're afraid people will— we fear people are going to see. And then maybe there's another energy body like ourselves. So it's like our energy is split like 3 different places, and people wonder why they feel burnt out or they just feel exhausted, you know, all the time. And when it comes to fueling yourself, if we fuel our life with the opinions and expectations of those around us, both positive and negative— I'll say it on both sides— then we're gonna probably run out of gas, right? Because it's not very sustainable.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, it's Nobody has the right necessarily to define who we are, right? And I think that it's easy to say, but the only opinion about ourselves and our dreams that counts is ourselves. And I think we do ourselves a disservice when we let the noise of other people's opinions and expectations distort our own reality. It subverts our own thoughts. It drowns out our own true voice of who we are. And I'm not saying we don't learn from other people and get mentors, but owning that we are, we and we alone are 100% responsible for our life. And so it's not easy. A lot of things are very simple, but they can be also that difficult. And so comparison is a challenge because when we overthink or we have self-judgment, I really feel like we talk about it in the book, like digital depression, where we're constantly comparing ourselves to the highlight trailer of the people that are there. And sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because of the filter they're using, or there's a lot of artificial turf online also as well.

Mm-hmm.

But the truth is it's greener where we water it and where we nurture it. And what we nourish flourishes, right? So, you know, my, my thing is, um, because it's easy, you know, with when, you know, as, as you build following and everything, to really feel like that's, that's life. Um, for me, honestly, social media, it's not because I'm so enlightened. I just, it stresses me out, honestly. Uh, so I spend, you know, very less and less time over the years on it. Um, but I would say when, if you're going to use comparison, the person we should be comparing ourselves To is, you know, just ourselves, who we were yesterday, you know, or maybe comparing yourself to the best version of yourself. You know, it's not about being perfect. It's about, about progress, right? It's about the consistent effort that you bring every single day that lead to incremental changes in our life. Because I think little by little, a little becomes a lot. And that's really, that's how winning happens, right? That's how transformation happens. Just like there's an algorithm to Instagram, whatever you engage with, they give you more of. You watch all the cat videos, they show you more cats, share cats, comment cats, cats. And then you think their whole Instagram is just cats, right? Well, your mind has that algorithm too. Whatever you engage with, you get more of. And so if people are just looking at what's dark and threatening and scary and fear-based media, if it bleeds, it leads, right? Which is a big control mechanism, right? When somebody is fearful, You know, in their survival brain mode, it really— you're, you're held hostage away from rational thinking. You're held hostage away from logic, right?

Mm-hmm.

Um, and that's a different conversation. But if I'm just focused on what, like, scary and threatening, I'm engaging with that, just like the cat videos. And so I start seeing threatening, dark, scary things all over the place. The challenge, though, it leaves very small bandwidth for gratitude for possibility, for opportunity. Right. And so I believe that the things that we look for, we see more of. And so the part of it I think is more neurological.

So do you have any hacks for when you find yourself in that high angst or a state of frustration or anger to be able to kind of pull yourself out to soften it a bit so that you don't misstep or you don't— you're not as easily influenced, all of those things.

Yeah, I feel you. I think all of learning and all of life is state dependent. You know, our emotions, you know, when— think about it, we're not logical, we are biological. When you think about dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin, endorphins, we are this like chemical feeling soup. And we don't do things logically as much as we do it emotionally. Right. And, and so if we're in a confused, fearful state, we're not going to, we're not going to parent the best. We're not going to study for that exam the best. We're not going to give that wonderful toast at that wedding that we want to or, or be able to perform on the field. Right. And so chronic stress, it actually shrinks the human brain when we're creating cortisol and adrenaline all the time. It puts us in fight or flight or freeze. And that's not a place you want to live and build, you know, your dreams and create, you know, the, you know, your, your desired life. Um, chronic fear, by the way, suppresses the human immune system.

Mm-hmm.

Whole area of psychoneuroimmunology, right? That, uh, it makes you more susceptible to colds, the flus, the viruses, and, you know, so like, you know, so fear is certainly a virus, you know, into itself, and it really compromises them. When we're in fight or flight or we're freezing, the challenge is we're not accessing the parts of ourselves, that executive functioning where we could, that higher order rational thinking, those creative centers of our mind. And so if you get flustered from, oh my God, I'm so nervous, I have to give this presentation, or I'm scared of approaching that person I'm attracted to, or studying for this exam, the first thing to do is obviously you want to control how you feel. I think it's important everyone has their to-do list, but I think what if we cultivated a to-feel list every single day? These are 3 emotions I want to build and develop because emotions are— everybody has a set point, right? Like they just have a set point for happiness or a set point for stress. And that's of like their norm. But I also feel like it's a muscle too, that the more we, we, you know, like we look for stuff that's funny or we watch funny things, we go to comic clubs, whatever, then we just, we cultivate those things. Same thing with love, you know, or anything. So I think one of the questions you ask yourself before you need to perform is not— if anyone here is facing a dilemma or a decision or difficulty, most people ask, what do I need to do? I would say, step back from that question instead of saying, what do I need to do now? Who do I need to be? Right. And come from— because if you're going to choose to be compassionate, you know, in a difficult, like, arguing, maybe you're entering an argument with your significant other or a child, then if you choose to be compassionate, then the behavior takes care of itself. Right. If you choose to be loving or understanding, you know, then the behavior happens, the actions happen more naturally.

Mm-hmm.

I think the fastest way to change the way you feel is through our body. Sometimes it's hard just to mentally just change things in your mind. But I think sometimes when we move our body in different ways, it puts us in a different place.

Mm-hmm.

And that could be something as getting up and dancing or listening to some music, putting a big silly smile on your face, something that gets you out of that mode because it just— and then also it generally changes the the feeling pattern of the people around us also as well, because it's unexpected, right? It kind of interrupts their, their normal train of feeling also. Um, so I would say yes, of course we have autonomy on how we feel. Nobody can, you know, even though sometimes we feel like, oh, we react to the environment, to media, to politics, to the weather, um, we decide, right? One of my favorite books is a book by Viktor Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning. I think it's important that we could choose what experiences mean to us. And so what I would say is always start with our body, you know, like moving our body, putting our shoulders back, you know, our physiology affects our psychology in a big way. And this is the second thing, is just to remind ourselves that, you know, we are not our thoughts, right? That we don't have to believe everything that we think. And it's easy to change our frame of mind by saying if you're in a hot debate with somebody asking a different question, like, what's silly about this? You know, do I really want to be right, or do I want to be in love? You know, changing your focus onto something that might be more empowering. Sometimes what we resist in life tends to persist, right? You fight, and then they— that person, like, you know, kind of digs their heels in, and then you're just like— then you just feel exhausted, and you can even just forget about what everything— you know, why it even started from the beginning. But I would say we control the way we feel. And going back to choice and the power of choice, we could always decide what to think, you know, what we react, you know, and those actions lead to experience, that experience leads to feelings, and those feelings feed those thoughts again. So it becomes very cyclical. And we have a choice point at all times to decide what those things are.

Mm-hmm.

So, um, yeah, we're definitely stronger and have more control than we realize. But we always control the controllables, even with children. Like, if it's bad weather, you know, outside— bad, and that's been— there's a judgment on it's raining or storming, you know. Like, even what we were talking about in the beginning of the conversation, it's like if we act, oh, this sucks, it's so bad outside, then we're teaching a child like your feelings and emotions are dependent on the weather.

Yeah.

And even something subtle like that, right? And, um, then we just give up our agency or our sovereignty, you know, to something outside of ourselves.