Choose Joyy Podcast
Based on the mood and habit tracking Joyyful Planner, the Choose Joyy podcast is focused on self alignment for those who struggle with anxiety. Through these unpredictable times, we’ve all experienced moments of self-doubt and uncertainty. By making a conscious effort to choose joy daily, we allow ourselves to heal and grow into the path destined for us. Join me weekly to unpack, affirm, and choose joy.
Choose Joyy Podcast
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Ever felt like your joy is slipping away every time you scroll through Instagram or Twitter? You're not alone. In this episode, we tackle the impact of comparison, especially via social media, on our mental well-being. We explore the emotional chaos that arises from constantly measuring our lives against others' highlight reels—fostering envy, diminishing self-esteem, and creating a breeding ground for anxiety, depression, and chronic stress. Through my personal journey of taking a social media hiatus, I offer insights into the significance of unplugging for personal growth and mental health. We'll also arm you with practical strategies to break free from the comparison trap and encourage you to cultivate and appreciate your unique journey.
This segment is all about realigning our focus, leveraging our unique strengths, and staying committed to our personal growth. Join us for an episode brimming with authentic stories and practical tips to help you nurture your own success and ensure your grass is just as green.
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you've made it to the choose joy podcast. Here we make a conscious effort to choose joy daily. We allow ourselves to heal and grow into the path designed for us. Join me to unpack, affirm and choose joy. Hello and welcome back joyful babes. We're back full. I have not left y'all. I've been too busy creating and coming up with things. That's going to take us to the next level, but let's just get into it.
Speaker 1:Today's topic is about how comparison is the thief of joy, as we've heard time and time again, thanks to Theodore Roosevelt, and I really want to talk about it in terms of our phones, these phones, social media and the feelings that it can cause, and how that affects us mentally, our relationships and, honestly, the relationship that you have with yourself. With Instagram, twitter and all the other mini platforms out there, it can get very easy to look at what somebody else is doing and then compare that to yourself and what you're doing in your journey. And it's all a lie, y'all. It's all a lie. I've said it before and I'll say it again you can't compare yourself to somebody else's highlight reel. Think about it. On Instagram and on social media platforms, you put forth your best self. You literally become your own PR agent, in a sense, right, you're only putting out the positive things agent, in a sense, right, you're only putting out the positive things and then, in conjunction with that, you're putting out all this content because you're seeking positive validation. And, honestly, we've heard it before but I feel like we don't really internalize it. Your journey is your journey. They're not anyone else's. Where you are in your journey will never be exactly like somebody else's.
Speaker 1:So why do we waste so much time trying to identify ourselves based off of someone else's life? And when you say it out loud it honestly truly sounds insane. But that's what we do every day. We're scrolling, we're looking and we're internalizing these feelings of why, how does she have this? How did he do this? What am I doing in my own life? Why don't I have that? Why am I not doing this? Like I should be doing more, I should be doing less, and yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:It goes on and on and on this cycle of comparison and, honestly, it just causes feelings of discontent and envy. And, in my opinion, comparison is not the true thief of joy. Envy is being envious of what someone else has right and these feelings cause a diminished sense of self-worth, low self-esteem. Mentally, the habit of comparison contributes to increased levels of anxiety, depression, chronic stress and creates this cycle of self-criticism that, if you really took the time to step out of yourself and look at yourself, you're really not doing half bad In your relationships. It could lead to feelings of jealousy and resentment and fostering instead of fostering genuine connection and support.
Speaker 1:Right, and this can look like anything. You can compare yourself on the basis of appearance, achievements or success, relationships, material possessions right, and I want to be clear I've always believed that in any of your relationships, whether that be friendships, romantic relationships, work relationships there should be a healthy level of competition. It's okay to have a healthy competitive spirit, and how that can look like is being open to encouraging one another right and challenging one another to improve, helping each other reach personal goals and being happy about someone else's growth other than your own. This is where the end result is not necessarily about winning, but gaining other things, like learning more about yourself, completing a certain goal, learning consideration of others right. I think of it like chess, not checkers right Causes you to be more thought out and an overall better person and it just motivates you and it inspires personal growth and it fosters a drive for healthy improvement. That looks nothing like the toxic comparison that social media can sometimes bring out.
Speaker 1:Now, if you follow my personal page on Instagram, you may or may not have noticed I mean, I'm not a celebrity. You may or may not have noticed, I mean, I'm not a celebrity that I took a long break from posting and really interacting with Instagram for my own personal mental health and I just needed to unplug. I just needed to take some time to unplug, whether that be once a month, once a quarter, once a year, whatever. Take some time to just unplug and replace that habit with something healthy for you, whether instead of I'm going to scroll on my phone on TikTok, tiktok has me in a choke hold y'all Like you can be scrolling on TikTok for 20 minutes. You look up it's been two hours, babe. Go outside, touch some grass and really hone into your own health, because you can either use anything in life to help you and if it's not helping you, it's harming you, it's either or you know, like everything in life isn't always gray. Sometimes things are just black and white. But during my break I just learned and continued to repeat to myself that the grass is greener where you water it.
Speaker 1:If you're focused on what other people are doing and how other people are posting and where other people are and how people have what they have, you forget that during all that time you are taking away from yourself, you're not pouring into yourself, you're pouring all your attention and time and energy into someone else's whole life. And with the overstimulation of social media, it can truly make overcoming the habit of comparison seem impossible. Like, how can I be on my phone scrolling and looking at all these things that are coming at us and not automatically compare myself to what I see? But definitely want to talk about that too, because here in the Choose Joy community, we don't only talk about problems and things that arise in our lives. That makes it difficult. We talk about solutions and ways that we can improve ourselves and be better for your own self every single day. So let's talk about solutions, y'all.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about how we can overcome this habit of comparison, this habit of looking at what other people have and not focusing on ourselves. Number one, right off the bat self-awareness, being able to identify your own patterns, your own triggers, whatever is driving this habit right. So take a minute to ask yourself why. What are my whys for what I want to do in life and also why I feel the need to compare myself to someone else's highlight reel. That has absolutely nothing to do with me. I've said it before. You know yourself better than anyone else, and with that you're your own biggest critic period. We take ourselves through so much, y'all Like we really take ourselves through a mental, emotional, spiritual struggle every day, and we don't have to. You literally do not have to.
Speaker 1:And that leads me into the second thing Shifting your focus from external validation to internal growth. Why do you care if someone else thinks that you're doing good or not? And honestly, that hits the nail right on the head For me personally personally, I'm a words of affirmation girly. I love when somebody's telling me you're doing good, you're doing the right things, yes A, you get a star. I'm that girl and I have to constantly remind myself that even if I don't get that, it doesn't mean I'm not doing good. It doesn't mean I'm doing I'm not doing a good job. Okay, if I don't get a lot of views, if no one listens to anything that I put out, it doesn't automatically make that a time for self-reflection, okay.
Speaker 1:How I combat this is by setting intentions for myself, meaningful goals measurable to my own personal progress. And if I complete that goal personally for me, then I'm happy, I'm good and that in itself is validation. Should be validation for you, like truly ask yourself how many goals have you had personally that no one knew about? No one knows that this is something that you wanted to accomplish and you did it right and you have like a silent win. It almost feels like a silent win, like yes, girl, you did that, yes, man. Like you accomplished that goal, bro, and nobody knew it, but you almost had like an internal celebration. That's how our lives should be. Not everything has to be public, not everything has to be posted, not everything has to be viewed Mathematically.
Speaker 1:Combat the feelings of comparison by practicing compassion, embracing your uniqueness and how my journey doesn't look like yours, and that's a great thing because it's my journey, it's not yours, right? I'm on this path alone. It's me and God, and it's you and God, and him and God and her and God, and we're all doing this thing called life together and running our own individual races. To me, the sense of joy comes from gratitude and over time our society has lacked that emotion. We are no longer grateful that you are breathing right now. God woke you up this morning and started you on your way. You went to work. You have a job that you can work. You have a way to make a life for yourself. You have a brain right, a beautiful mind that creates thoughts and creates actions right, and every day brings new mercies. Every day is an opportunity to grow, get better, pour into yourself and accomplish the things that you set out to accomplish.
Speaker 1:The third thing, which, like I said before, I practice limit your time on social media, unfollow accounts that trigger negative feelings and create your own online environment. So I have a personal page that I post, and I actually have another page on Instagram where all the people I follow may not be friends, may not even be anyone that I know, but I pretty much curate my own online experience and my own online environment. I follow pages that bring me joy, make me happy, motivate me in a healthy way, make me want to be better, show me how to do things in life, things that I'm actually interested in, whether that be different hobbies that I've picked up, other podcasters, other people that are, you know, doing what I do and that can make social media a better place to be involved in. Galatians, chapter 6, verses 4, says Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the of pouring that energy into everything else and everyone else and what other people are doing. What are you doing? What am I doing to make my life better? What am I doing to complete my goals?
Speaker 1:We have literally reached the mid part of the year, so what are those resolutions looking like, right? Remember January? We created a plan for ourselves, or you may have had thoughts about what you're going to do. Hello, we are approaching third quarter. What are you doing? Those Q1 goals have they been completed? Those things that we set out for ourselves, those intentions that we put out have those been completed? Have we achieved what we want to achieve? And, if not, it's time to refocus, it's time to realign and it's time to go back to tweak our processes and really hone down and lock in. We got to lock in y'all.
Speaker 1:So sometimes, today or this week or this month, have a day without social media. How do you feel? Keep a track of how it makes you feel, how it makes you think, and what you're thinking about and what you'd rather be doing, or other things that you could be doing and really pay attention to yourself. Right, really focus on what makes me tick, what makes me go, what do I want to achieve, what do I want to do? Where am I at in life? Also, gratitude, being thankful for the things that I already have, having a sense of appreciation for where I'm at in my journey and what that looks like to me. A healthy way of doing this is, first thing, when you wake up, say or write down three things that you're grateful for, three things that you're thankful for. That will lead you into your day.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you have to put your phone down and live real life. God blessed us with eyes to see and experience and take on. Okay, yes, it can be fun having a mini computer in your hand 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but your brain is a computer. Okay, like God has given us the power of imagination, the power of a wonderful mind, like I previously said, healthy body, a healthy thought process. Let's tap into that, let's see what we can be. And, yeah, so, stop comparing yourself to somebody else's highlight reel. Okay, focus on you, focus on what you got going on, because if nobody told you today, you got it going on, so love you guys and continue to choose joy.