Confidently Beautiful with Ciera
In this podcast Ciera talks to you about bringing out your confidence in all areas of our life. Dream chasing, parenting, body image, health, money, relationships and so much more. Ciera covers it all. Get ready to stay confidently beautiful.
Confidently Beautiful with Ciera
Comparison vs. Inspiration: Choose the Right One
Join the Inspiration not Comparison 7-Day Challenge by clicking here!
Tired of feeling “less than” after a scroll? We’re tackling the comparison trap head-on with a clear, compassionate plan to swap envy for inspiration and protect your peace—especially during the holiday highlight reel season. Using research-backed insights and real-life examples, we unpack how upward and downward comparisons shape mood, why social media intensifies those feelings, and how to set guardrails that support mental health without ditching joy.
I share a seven-move toolkit you can start today. Begin by curating your feed with a quick follow audit and a five-minute scroll rule. Then practice the powerful reframe from comparison to inspiration: borrow one tiny step from what you see and build your own remix. Layer in a gratitude micro habit to cement small wins, define two personal metrics so you measure what matters to you, and use a 20-second self-talk script to stop spirals before they take root. When a post genuinely inspires, run the three-question checklist to adapt only what aligns with your values. If you’re ready to go deeper, try a mini social media fast to reset your baseline and reclaim your attention.
We also explore “productive comparison” as a model for growth—how to leverage upward comparison for motivation while avoiding shame. You’ll hear practical scenarios, from family outings that don’t go as planned to beauty routines that spark unexpected envy, each converted into doable, right-sized actions that fit your season. The goal isn’t to copy someone else’s life; it’s to choose one move, make it yours, and feel proud of the progress you can actually measure.
Join our seven-day “inspiration, not comparison” challenge to put the tools into motion. Unfollow five accounts, journal three lines of gratitude, define your seasonal metrics, pause social for 24 hours, test the inspiration checklist, say your script out loud, and share one small win with us. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who needs the reminder, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Your attention is precious—let’s spend it on what builds confidence.
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You're listening to Confidently Beautiful with Ciera, a podcast to help you stay confidently beautiful because we all have confidence inside us. We just need to bring it out, and I'm here to show you how. Body image, dreams, parenting style, personality, and more. Here we cover it all. Get ready to stay confidently beautiful. If you find yourself scrolling through your phone, looking at all the Instagram images, and you find yourself feeling less than, this episode is your permission slip to stop the comparison spiral. This topic is so important all the time, but I think especially right now, as we're going into the holidays with gifts, different family dynamics, and everyone's curated social feeds. In this episode, we're going to cover why comparison is so hard, and my favorite part, a short reframe and a toolkit so you can be inspired and not defeated. Social comparison is when you are evaluating yourself against another human. So there's like a downward comparison and an upward comparison. So an upward is comparing yourself to someone that you feel is better off. Downward comparison could be comparing yourself to someone who you feel is worse off. The upward comparison often can produce inspiration. It also can produce envy and feeling bad about yourself. So we need to be so careful about the comparison that we are doing and making sure that it is inspiring us and not tearing us down. And not only inspiring us, but also inspiring the people that we are comparing ourselves to. We don't want to make me make it so that we are feeling like we are better than somebody else because we are comparing because we feel like they are worse off than we are, or that downward comparison. The research is clear, and I think we all could agree, just based on our experience, that social media causes way bigger comparison effects and it is linked to increased depression and loneliness when the use of social media is high. Limiting social media improves your mood because I think we are just that is just what we naturally as humans do when we are looking at somebody else's life and we can only see the moments that they are sharing. We are going to compare. So if we're taking ourselves away from that and not doing that as often, not engaging in that social media as often, our mood is going to naturally improve. Upward social media comparisons. So that upward comparison again is to compare yourself who you feel like is better off than you are. Those comparisons tend to have negative effects on well-being more often than they do positive effects. So the highlight reels, they're not reality, they're an edited trailer made to sell attention. That's what we need to tell ourselves when we are when we are comparing. Because we don't want people to feel like they can't share their highlight reels, right? Sometimes we ourselves want to share our highlight reels. We want to show the good things. So a reframe that you can do, I wanted to talk about seven practical moves that you can do that will help you to have this reframe so that you are not falling into the comparison trap. Number one, filter and curate. So go through and do an audit of what you are who you are following. Unfollow five accounts that maybe trigger comparison for you this week. Or if you're not ready to unfollow them, maybe just mute them. Take them off so that they're not showing up on your feed. Think to yourself, if it doesn't teach me, uplift me, or make me laugh, it's not in my five-minute scroll. And keep yourself to a five-minute scroll, right? Like that that's the ideal is to only be scrolling for five minutes. Because, like the research says, like the more you are on social media and scrolling, the more unhappy you are going to be because you know more you are falling into that comparison trap. So reduce your social media, which will improve your mood. I'm guilty of it. We all are. Like I pick up my phone and I'm start scrolling. I'm pick up my phone to do something totally different, and then somehow I end up in the social media app and I'm like, how did I even get here? This is not what I picked up my phone for. But I find myself like scrolling, and if I'm watching some sort of reel or something that is just on my feed, then I just stop and I say to myself, Do I really care about this? And if I do care about it, then I can keep watching it and like I can keep learning because there is such valuable stuff on social media, but there's also so many things that can just put us in a negative mood and really, really damage our mental health. So I think to myself, do I really care about this? And if the answer is yes, I can keep watching. If the answer is no, then I either turn off my phone, like ideally, then that's what I do, or I can scroll on to something else. But really, like I just need to get off the phone as much as I can and not be scrolling as often as I am. Number two is the second reframe is inspiration versus comparison. So when you feel envy, when you're looking at the picture of the family, they're going mini golfing, their kids all look like they're having a great time, and you're like, ma'am, last time I took my kids mini golfing, they were like on the ground throwing a fit and like refusing to do it because they said it was hot and boring. And I may or may not be speaking from experience, right? So I can tell myself, like, what about this inspires me? I see this family and I can be inspired. Like, wow, they're getting out and they are doing something really, really fun that everyone is enjoying. So, what tiny step did they take that I could try? Like, what's something that all my kids would really enjoy? Okay, mini golf didn't work for me last time. So, what's something that we could do as a family that I could be inspired by this family that's doing this fun thing and try and recreate that in my own family, in my own life? So if I'm trying to take the content of not being like, man, I wish my family could just go mini golfing and I'm not comparing my family to theirs, like, why is my family not able to stay together and to like have put happy faces on for two hours while we go and do something fun? Like, what's wrong with like my family, Diana? Like, what's wrong with me as a mother? Why can't I like help my kids to learn to be enjoying these experiences? Instead of having all of those negative thoughts, I can think, wow, this family is doing something so fun. I feel inspired to go out with my family this afternoon and do something really exciting, something that they really love. Like, I think we're gonna go to the park and we're gonna bring our bikes and we're gonna do a little bike ride on the trail, and then we're gonna play on the playground. I can just be inspired. What's one tiny step that this family is maybe doing that I could try? If you see somebody who you're like, wow, her hair, it just looks beautiful. I wish I could do my hair like that. And you feel that envy and the jealousy, and like, oh, every time I try and curl my hair, it just doesn't curl like that. Instead of comparing yourself to that person, what could you be inspired of? Like, wow, look at how beautiful and soft her hair looks. I wonder what type of product she uses. Maybe I'm gonna do a little bit of research and see, oh, she tries this product. I've actually heard of that product, and I'm gonna be inspired to maybe try that product and see if it will work for me. So there's just like a reframe of inspiration versus comparison, not beating yourself up, not comparing yourself or wishing you had something and feeling envious of something, but and being inspired to try and be like that person, but not exactly like that person, right? Like your family doesn't have to do the mini golf, but you want what that family is having, which is fun, joy, and connection. So you can find something else to be inspired to go and try that. So instead of why not me ask what can I learn or what can I be inspired by, or just think of a compliment for that person as you are looking at the things that you are like liking about what they post. Number three is a gratitude micro habit. So each morning you could have your three small specific things that you did that you were proud of. This is where my confidence journals come into play, right? Today I felt confident when we can think of something that we felt confident, something that we are proud of that we did. And when you write it down, it is so powerful. It is so powerful to write things down. And so writing it down, we can have that reframe and that it's just a tiny little habit, but it's gonna have that reframe of our mind of thinking positive, gratitude, confidence, positive thoughts. Gratitude journaling increases your well-being and positive effect in multiple randomized studies. This is a study that is just all over the place about journaling, but specifically like gratitude journaling or positive journaling. Number four is to set personal matrix. So this is the scoreboard that you choose. So what does this mean? Define two personal non-social matrix for the season. So, example, I will read 10 pages nightly and I will cook one family recipe. Measure against your own values, not others. So when you are scrolling through your phone and you see, wow, this person is surprising their kids with a trip to Disney for Christmas. I wish that I did that for my kids. Wow, I'm so lame. I'm not not getting them really great presents. Like I just am not providing as much for my kids. We can think, wait a minute, what were my metrics for this season? Okay, I told myself that I was gonna get my kids five gifts each for Christmas, and I did that. So that's great that they're going to Disneyland with their kids for Christmas, but I am doing the five things for my kids that I chose to do. So to five wrapped presents for them. So we can just think of the things that we already defined for ourselves and be happy for the things that the other people are doing because they are valuing something different and like and that's okay. Our values can be different. Number five is to practice self-comparison scripts. So use like a 20-second phrase when you notice like that feeling of shame. Like, so an example could be like, this is hard, I'm doing my best. Something like that. Or it could be similar to what I said earlier about like if I'm scrolling and I'm watching something, like, do I really care about this? Is this really going to uplift me? Then I can just have that phrase that is just a quick one that is not going to get me sucked into the shame or the comparison or the spiraling. And I can just have that mantra that I can repeat to myself. Number six is an inspiration checklist. So when inspired, we could ask three questions like, what is inspiring me about this thing that I am seeing? Like this person posted this. Why am I feeling inspired by this? Number two, could I borrow or adapt one small thing from this thing that they posted? And number three, is it aligned with my values? If you can answer yes to all of those things, you can feel inspired and not compare yourself. So, like an example of that would be if your neighbor posted their front door, their front porch that they decorated for Christmas, you could be inspired. Like you could be like, wow, like that looks so beautiful. It is so holiday and festive. You could borrow things from that that you could use for yourself. So you're like, maybe I'm gonna do that idea of putting this style of doormat on top of another doormat and to like see if it will give some depth and some dimension to my front porch. So you don't have to recreate the exact thing and try and copy them completely, but you can have it your own and just be inspired by them and try not to compare like what you already have to what they did. And number seven is to try a three-day social media mini fast, or even if it's like I just need to block my social media so that I can only be on it for 20 minutes a day. This is going to help support your mood and it is going to help with that comparison because you're not putting all that stuff in front of your face, and so you're not going to be comparing as often. Productive comparison is when we use that upward comparison. So, like we're comparing ourselves to people that we think are better off than we are, and we're using it for a model for growth. So we're using it for motivation, inspiration, not a source of shame. Research shows that upward comparison can increase our self-improvement motivation, but we just need to be careful because it can also increase that negative effect, that shame, that guilt, the feeling of not being enough. So we need to make sure that we are using concrete steps to help us to turn that comparison into inspiration. Social comparison is normal and it's rooted in human psychology. That's what the research shows is that like that's just how humans are. Like, we are going to compare, we are going to like look at something and want it. So the seven-day inspiration, not comparison challenge. I have this as a free printable in the show notes if you want to download this and do this seven-day inspiration, not comparison challenge. So day one, we're going to unfollow or mute five accounts that don't uplift us. Day two, we're going to do a three-sentence of gratitude or positive journaling. Day three, we're going to define two personal seasonal metrics. So, what are the two things that we are going to want to try and accomplish this holiday season so that we don't fall into comparing ourselves to other people's holiday seasons. Number four, we're going to try a 24-hour social media pause. So day four, we're not going to get on social media for 24 hours. Day five, we're going to practice the inspiration checklist at least once. Number six, we're going to say the self-comparison script aloud when you catch yourself comparing. And day seven, I want you to share one small win, whether it's a through a DM or you put something on your story and you tag me. I want to see your small win for your inspiration, not comparison journey. If this episode helped you to shift one thought screenshot and tag me at confidently beautiful podcast and use the hashtag inspired, not defeated, and I will repost these as you guys tag me and use that hashtag because I want to hear more from you. Comparison is quicksand. The more you struggle, the deeper you sink. So let me give you the shovel so that you can get yourselves out. Join me in this seven-day inspiration, not comparison challenge as we try and reframe our minds and how we are seeing social media and seeing the people in our lives and reframe it to be inspired rather than comparing. You don't need to copy someone else's life. Just borrow one move and call it your own remix. Thank you for joining. Next episode is going to be all about beauty basics that every mom should know. We're going to talk about the truth behind skincare and how we can feel confident with our skin and in our skincare. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Connect with me on Instagram at confidently beautiful podcast and share this episode with someone in your life who could use a little reminder of just how amazing they already are. Stay confidently beautiful.