157 | Comparison: Stop Measuring Your Life Against “Her”

Hey Mama!

April Series: 4 Weeks to Freedom — A Mom Guilt Type Breakdown. This month we’re unpacking the 3 most common mom guilt types (Perfectionist, Past-Dweller, Comparison) so you can name your pattern, swap pressure for grace, and walk in real peace.

Have you ever left church thinking, “Why can’t I talk to my kids like that mom?” Then you get in the car and your mind starts grading your ordinary day against her best moment.

If you’re a purpose-driven, working mom who loves Jesus and wants to build what God put in you… but you keep feeling like you’re “always falling short,” this episode is for you. Because comparison isn’t just annoying, it becomes a terrible scoreboard that turns a season shift into a character flaw and fuels mom guilt instead of freedom.

In today’s episode, we get honest about why comparison isn’t telling you the truth, it’s stealing your peace. We also discuss how to come back to what God says is true about you in motherhood.

What you’ll learn:

• How to name the comparison (who/what you’re measuring yourself against) so it stops running your emotions
• How to expose the lie underneath comparison and trade it for biblical truth and grace
• How to choose one next faithful step that fits your real capacity without quitting on your purpose

If you’re ready for freedom as a Christian mom in this season, press play and listen.

Episode Mentioned:

153 | Pressure: Why Alone Time vs Family Time Still Feels Wrong

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It's time to become to the mom you want to be. You can do hard things!
"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"- Philippians 4:13

Transcript

0:00

Have you ever left church thinking, why can't I talk to my kids like that, mom? And then you get in the car and your mind starts score keeping grading every ordinary day against her best moments. But what if comparison isn't telling you the truth? It's actually stealing your peace. In today's episode, we are getting to the root of comparison, mom guilt, and the one shift that helps you stop measuring and start mothering from freedom because there's something you need to know. Welcome to the Restored Mind. Biblical wisdom, simple steps. No more mom guilt. I'm Caroline Tao. Let's do this. If you are constantly score keeping, wondering why you can't be as patient as organized or as quote unquote together as she is. Please hear me when I say this. That pressure isn't just your personality. It is a pattern and naming your mom guilt type is the first step to breaking free. Maybe you're thinking, I already know what's wrong with me. I don't need a quiz. And you know what, great. But this isn't about labeling you. This is about giving you clarity and gracefilled next steps so that you can actually live it out. So take the mom guilt. Breakthrough quiz, it's only seven question and takes just three minutes. The link is in the show notes. All right, welcome back. We are in week two of our four weeks to Freedom miniseries. It is a mom guilt type breakdown, and today we are talking about the comparison mom, but we're not just talking about comparison, like scrolling makes me feel bad. No, we are talking about the comparison. Mom who is ambitious, she's incredibly gifted and driven, and she wants to. Build something that honors God while still loving her family. Well, does that sound like you? If it is, you are in the right place, and I get it because the tension is real. Because you're not only a mom, you're a woman with so many gifts. You are a woman with dreams and somewhere along the way, those dreams, they got buried underneath real life. And if you're not careful, that buried part of you starts to feel like resentment. because it feels like you're always carrying this unspoken mental load and you always feel like you are behind or that you're just never doing enough. And here's the lie that drives comparison. Mom guilt. It's, I'm always falling short and it shows up in two directions you compare yourself to other moms and you compare. Yourself to how you used to be. So maybe before kids you were this incredibly fast-paced person. You can't see me, but I'm raising my hands. Because that was me. You probably had multiple jobs. You went to school, uh, you were just basically on this go, go, go lifestyle, and now you really can't run at the same speed that you used to. And so it begins to make you feel like something is wrong with you. But nothing is quote unquote wrong with you. You're just in a different season and comparison makes a season shift feel like a character flaw. Yeah, I know. When I realized that, I was like. Oh my gosh. It really is making me feel like something is quote unquote wrong with me. And for many of us, the comparison gets louder when we're around Christian moms that we actually know. So it's not really from strangers and not from influencers, but moms in our church who are in our circle, really the ones that we sit next to and have conversations with. And you are witnessing in real time how they speak to their kids, how calm that they seem, even when the world around them seems to be on fire and how patient they look despite how exhausted they are or even how put together they may even appear. And then your brain is. Well, why can't I be like that? Or that's not how I talk to my kids. And then it turns into a fake statistic that you end up believing to be true, which is 99% of moms are doing it every day. They are raising their family, they're homeschooling, running a business, or keeping up with their body and serving at church. And really, I can't even keep it together. And before you know it, comparison stops being a thought and it becomes an identity or really a fear of being perceived. You think this is going to be a reflection on me. This is how I'm going to be seen as a mom. So let me tell you a story that actually surprised me, and just to be clear before I dive into the story, this is not a fitness podcast. I am not giving out workout advice, but the lesson from this moment is such a mirror for mom. Guilt. Fitness, by the way, is such a huge part of my life. So I love to draw from my fitness journey, and I just see so much parallel in it in my personal life. So there's a season where I started taking fitness more seriously, and I was on Instagram a lot because I had a platform where I was sharing a lot of beauty content, and a lot of women in my world were also into fitness. So that was in my algorithm. Beauty content and fitness content. And eventually what happened was I found myself comparing. I wasn't comparing anything beauty but really it was fitness. I was looking at moms who seemed so fit, like they had three kids and their body looked snatched and they just looked stronger than ever. And I became increasingly obsessed with it. But here's what I learned the hard way comparison. Will make you overlook your own progress and it will make you discount what God is doing in your life. And scripture actually calls this out in two Corinthians. It's in chapter 10, verse 12. Now, before I read the verse, I'm gonna give you a quick context just because I want you to have it and understand the reason for this letter, Paul, and this. Letter is defending his ministry because the church had people criticizing him and comparing him to other voices they thought were more impressive. And in chapter 10, he basically says, when you start measuring yourself by other people, you lose wisdom. And I'm gonna just read the second half of this verse for you today, which says, but when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another. They are without understanding, and obviously Paul is talking about his ministry leadership here, but I believe the principle applies when I measure my motherhood against someone else's life, I will always end up feeling behind. Comparison honestly, is a terrible scoreboard, especially if you are comparing for the wrong reasons, because when you're in comparison mode, you don't notice the small wins. You just don't. And the small wins are what turn into the big wins. But comparison says if it's not big yet as in the progress, then it doesn't count. And that is how comparison ends up stealing your joy. It takes a good thing like growth, for example, and makes it feel like proof you'll never be enough. Okay, so let's expose what's underneath comparison.'cause comparison is not just, I wish I had what she had Comparison is often a belief that God did not give you what you need for your assignment and mama. That's the part that we have to bring into the light because God is not asking you to steward her gifts. He is asking you to steward yours, and you don't steward gifts well by punishing yourself. So here's what comparison sounds like in motherhood. It says, I'm not patient like her. I am not even remotely as organized as she is, or I'm not as gentle as she is. And then you start thinking, maybe I should do more. I am so behind on this mothering thing, and then it becomes, well, maybe something's wrong with me, but the truth is, your pace changing doesn't mean that your purpose has disappeared. It means your purpose has to be steward differently in this season and, and I want to keep this simple and anchored in identity because that's where comparison hits first. When comparison shows up this week, I want you to practice one simple exercise. There are four easy steps. The first one is to name the comparison. All right? So I want you to ask who or what am I measuring myself against right now? And then in step two, name what it's saying about you. So ask, when I compare, what do I start believing about myself? Some examples you might find here are, I'm falling short, or I am behind. Or you start to think, I am not cut out for this. I can't be a mom and still fill in the blank with whatever that is. And then in step three, return to what God says is true. God is the creator. You are his creation, and he does not make accidental mothers, nor does he accidentally give you these gifts and talents. He is so purposeful and intentional in all the things that he does. So you are not disqualified because your life feels messy. You are not less than because you can't run at the pace that you used to, which is something I really had to work through because I remember comparing myself to the people in my life where I would think, wow, their career is blossoming. And all I could see was that I became a mom. But don't let that discourage you. You are not failing because your gifts look different in this season. All right, and then the last step is to choose the one next faithful step. It's not a reinvention. So take one small step that matches your actual capacity, meaning do what makes sense for you and the season that you are in. And I know we can get caught up in trying to do everything and decision fatigue where we begin to believe that we are now stuck between two quote unquote bad choices when really both are extremely good choices. And I actually talk about this in episode 153, Which I will link in the show notes for you, but it is so good and so full of golden nuggets that you can take away from. So take a listen to that episode if what I said just resonated with you, and the reason why I am talking about this one fateful step is because one fateful step is still stewardship all. So Mama Comparison is going to try to convince you that you're not doing enough, but God is not measuring you by someone else's life. All right? He is inviting you into faithfulness to obedience to that next small step. And freedom stops when you start trying to prove yourself, all right? And you start living from the truth that you already loved. And the thing is, becoming the mom you want to be can be hard, but guess what? You can do hard things. Thanks for hanging out with me today, mama. If this episode helped you in any way, would you do me a favor and please share it with a fellow mom that could also benefit from this episode. Until then, I'll see you next Wednesday, right here on this podcast. Go in peace.