PepTalk
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PepTalk
#70 How to Escape the Trap of Social Comparison
Have you ever caught yourself in the endless loop of comparing your life to others, especially on social media? In today's episode, we unpack the profound wisdom in Bob Goff's quote, "God does not compare, he creates," from his book "Dream Big," and how it serves as a powerful antidote to the destructive habit of comparison. Drawing inspiration from Goff's portrayal of his wife, Sweet Maria, we explore how embracing your unique gifts can lead to greater clarity and joy. I share my own personal struggles with comparison and offer insights on how focusing on our inherent worth can change our mindset and heartset for the better.
We also delve into Leon Festinger's social comparison theory to understand the psychological impacts of comparing ourselves to others. While it can sometimes be a motivator, especially in competitive fields like athletics, the emotional toll can be significant, particularly when amplified by the curated realities of social media. By redefining humility and embracing authenticity, we discuss the importance of appreciating our own unique journeys. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to compete with yourself, celebrate your personal growth, and recognize your unique potential. Tune in to find encouragement and practical advice on how to live a more joyful and authentic life.
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When's the last time you had a pep talk? Pep talk, pep talk. Yo, when's the last time you had a pep talk? Has it been a minute? That's okay, you're in the right place. I've got you. Welcome to pep talk. And in this episode, we're talking about an awesome quote God doesn't compare what he creates. Now let's get it. Yo.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Pep Talk, the podcast that cheers you on and coaches you up. I'm your host, coach J, and you're listening to the podcast that is all about cheering you on and coaching you up, and we're so excited that you're here with us. Our belief is that everybody needs a cheerleader and everybody needs a coach. We need somebody to encourage us and be our hype man flavor Flav style, but we also need a coach who can come in and say as great as you are, I believe that there is another level for you to achieve, there's another speed for you to go, another gear for you to hit, and that's what we endeavor to bring to you every week on Pep Talk. Again, this is episode 70. We've been rocking with you for 70 episodes. Thank you so much for continuing to listen and to take part in the mission. If you're enjoying the content, please, please, please leave us a five-star rating and a review wherever you catch our podcasts. And also, do us a favor and tell a friend, tell a family member, about Pep Talk. We would love to have more of you all. Come and join our Pep Squad community.
Speaker 1:Now let's jump into the content for today. So in the opener, I gave you a quote and I want to give you that quote again because it is the focus around today's episode. The quote was God does not compare, he creates. Let me say that again God does not compare, he creates. Now that quote comes from Bob Goff, from I believe it's his latest book, dream Big, a book that I read at some point in I believe it was 2022 or 2023. And it is a fabulous read. I would highly recommend it to you. But this quote specifically comes from the first chapter of the book and you can imagine, okay, this is a book that is urging us to dream big, to take the limits off of our dreams, to take the limits off of our faith, to take the limits of what we're believing for and just go big, take the risk and just go big. And so in this first chapter, he is talking about his wife, y'all and the way that Bob Goff talks about his wife. It is incredible. He talks about her. He calls her Sweet Maria Isn't that great? He calls his wife Sweet Maria and he just he speaks about her in such glowing terms. But I want to read something from chapter one to you in his description of his dear Sweet Maria. And here's what he says. Eventually Sweet Maria said yes, and we made a few kids to go with my list of names. It's 35 years later and whatever I'm good at these days, it's because sweet Maria Goff is better at it.
Speaker 1:One of the many things she's good at is knowing herself and finding joy in her unique set of gifts, abilities and desires. She doesn't compare her abilities and ambitions to anyone else's. She knows that God doesn't compare what he creates. She also knows what she wants, why she wants it and what she's going to do about it. Having this kind of clarity is rare and beautiful and unstoppable. Aim for this in your life and you will find great joy. God does not compare what he creates, so why do we continue to do it? So this episode I really want to focus in because I've done episodes on this before, but I really feel like I need to hit it again I don't think that comparison is an issue that we can never hit too much.
Speaker 1:When we're talking about our mindset, you know how we think about ourselves and how we think about our world and our heart set, how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about the things that are going on around us. Comparison is one of those things that I don't know about y'all, but I deal with it and you know, in my latest therapy session I was talking with my counselor and we started talking about comparison and he had me talk about some of the different people that I have been envious of because I have compared myself to them. Now I know some of y'all out there listening. You've never had that issue. You have always been secure in who you were. Never had that issue. You have always been secure in who you were. You've always been secure in your ambitions, in your abilities and the fact that you are a one of one. You've always compared yourself to yourself.
Speaker 1:But for those of us who did not stand in line to grab that portion of personal development on our way out of heaven, this episode is for us, those of us who still struggle with comparison in some way, in some shape or in some form. Yo, it was Teddy Roosevelt, president, teddy Roosevelt, theodore Roosevelt, who said that comparison is the thief of joy, and I thought about that. Why would that be the case? Because it is because comparison steals your joy, but what it leaves you in exchange is despair, because you can't find anything within yourself to be proud of, to be happy about. And I'm going to tell you from my vantage point.
Speaker 1:Okay, I used to always believe. I grew up in church and I used to always hear how good it was to be humble. Okay, h-u-m-b-l-e. Some people say humble. I say humble because that's what I learned when I was in grade school silent H and all that stuff to be humble. And somehow, in my own personal theology, I began to equate being humble with not thinking, with not only not thinking highly about myself, but also putting myself on the very lowest rung and considering everybody else as higher than me but not equal to. Well, let me tell you the damage that that has done to me over my life.
Speaker 1:In my quest to be humble, okay, in my quest to place other people, to consider myself less, what that has led to is me putting people on a pedestal above me and then looking at their lives constantly and saying, man, if only I could speak as well as this person, if only I could get a crowd going as well as this person, if only I could lead like this person, if only I could communicate like this person, if only my podcast was pulling numbers like this person, I'd be happy, I'd be great. Oh, if only I was as thin as this person, or if only I was as this as this person. And my life has been a murderer's row of self-condemnation and self-loathing, because I have always found a way to place others on pedestals above me and look up to them wondering what I could do to become more like them. Now, that is totally disregarding the things that I am good at, the things that I have been good at over my life, the things that people have told me countless times that I was good at doing. But because I struggled so much with this whole idea of comparing myself to other people, I've done so much damage to myself, and so I thought that it would be cool in this episode to look at some of the psychology behind comparison, to see if it can help us get further along.
Speaker 1:If you're still struggling there, if you are a recovering uh, comparison addict. I'm hoping that the information that we talk about today will be able to help you heal and become better, uh, and to embrace the, the authenticity, the beautiful authenticity in who you are, because, again, god doesn't compare you to anything else that he creates. As far as God is concerned, you are a one of one, and that's not by that, is not by accident. It is purposeful, by design, because God wants you to know that what you have, what he has placed inside of you, he hasn't placed that exact same combination of gifts and abilities inside of no one else. For the purpose that your purpose is your purpose, your pathway is your pathway and it doesn't matter who else can do what you do. It doesn't matter who does it better or who does it worse, for whatever you have been given, for whatever you have been gifted, for, however you have been created, it is more than enough to accomplish the path and the purpose and the plan that has already been set forth for your life.
Speaker 1:And if it sounds like I'm preaching to y'all, I am passionate about this. I've prayed for God to break this away from me. I've had to work on my mind, I've had to work on my heart, and so I'm coming to you today with so much passion and a strong desire that if you were dealing with this spirit of comparison strong desire that if you were dealing with this spirit of comparison, this desire to compare yourself, that something I say might open your eyes and you will find yourself free from comparison forever, because you're awesome. You've been created to be awesome. You've been created to do good works that have been designed for you in advance, before you were even born. God knew you and he didn't look at you, and he didn't look at you and say, oh, I wish that Justin was more like Jason, or that Justin was more like Jeffrey, or that Justin was more like Jared. No, that's not that, that's not it. God looked at you and said OK, I'm happy with this, I'm proud of this, and it is time for you to be happy with this and to be proud with this as well.
Speaker 1:So in psychology, there is a theory that was developed in 1954 by a psychologist named Leon Festinger. This theory is called the social comparison theory, and what it says is basically that as many as 10% of our thoughts, on average, are thoughts of comparison of some kind that fluctuates based on the person. And this theory also goes on to say that people who regularly compare themselves to others may find motivation to improve, but they may also experience deep feelings of dissatisfaction, guilt, remorse, which will lead them to engage in destructive behaviors like consistent lying and eating disorders. Now, I was reading this article on psychology today about social comparison, the social comparison theory, and it talked about some of the benefits of comparison. Okay, it talked about how some people are able to use comparison as a competitive drive, as a competitive streak, and I know that there are athletes who do that. Right, they want to be like Mike, they want to be better than Michael Jordan. They see, you know, maybe they want to be a better passer than Chris Fowler. In football, somebody wants to be a better quarterback than Tom Brady, or to win more Super Bowls than Tom Brady, and they use comparison as a positive motivational tool to help them continue to push through the workouts, to push through the pain and the discomfort, knowing that there will be a payoff at the end of that.
Speaker 1:And you know, I kind of get that, but I don't believe that, ultimately, comparison could ever become, could be a positive thing, and I could be wrong. And if I'm wrong, if comparison for you is positive, hey, send me a fan mail. I want to know, I want you to tell me. Help me, help me to understand, because from where I'm sitting and from what the work that I've seen of it in the lives of other people, I have seen more of the detrimental effects of comparison than any positive benefits improve. But I think more often than not it leads to a person tearing themselves down at the expense of choosing to look up to someone else. It can cause us to be judgmental, to think that we're better than the people that we rank ourselves above and to feel inferior to the people that we rank ourselves below, and that's not good at all. Comparisons are likelier to make us feel bad when we make the error of only comparing ourselves to the paragons of certain traits. So, for example, many people believe they have a less active social life than others, but when we make those comparisons, we tend to compare ourselves only to the most social people.
Speaker 1:Let's think about social media. Right? We look at social media, we are, we're bored, and so we get on social media and we see people posting the highlights, not the lowlights, the highlights. And so we take those high or those manufactured high moments in time and we compare ourselves to that. Somebody's a millionaire and just bought a new house, somebody is posing next to a Bugatti, somebody, you know, has a happy wife and kids, and the caption is there and the picture is just that, and we see the snapshot, but we don't see the behind the scenes. And when we don't see the behind the scenes, guess what? We find that we are comparing ourselves to paragons, we are comparing ourselves to things that don't actually exist. And so we have a faulty barometer for what success is. We have a faulty barometer for what joy is. We have a faulty barometer for what the highest of the heights looks like.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not saying that everybody on social media is faking, but I wonder what would happen if we had an entire 24-hour period where people could only post the lowlights, if people only posted what was really going on, how they were feeling about the prayers that haven't been answered yet, how they were feeling about not having enough money to pay their bills, how they were coping with the divorce or the separation, how they were coping with not being able to get along with their children or get along to see their children. And I know that there's some of that. But y'all, I'm just saying what are we comparing ourselves to and what are we allowing it to do to our lives? It's been proven that social media is harmful to self-esteem because we are comparing ourselves to snapshots and not the behind the scenes reality. But even with all of that said, we have this natural human beings have this natural inclination to compare ourselves to others. When we meet people, what happens? Hey, my name is John. You know, I live in Grand Rapids, michigan. Oh, yeah, my name's Trevor. I live in, you know, galveston, texas. What do you do for a living Trevor? What do you do for a living John?
Speaker 1:Whether we realize it or not, that is a way that we are measuring ourselves up against somebody else. Now, yeah, it could be some genuine curiosity, but I wonder if, in the background, we're like oh, john just works in an office, I own my own business, and so now that kicks my masculine need for superiority into overdrive. And so here's what I've had to learn and I'm going to talk about this from a personal standpoint Is that I have had to come to the realization and the I've just had to resolve this within myself that I'm the only me that I have, and, come hell or high water. I have to learn how to be comfortable with me being who I am. I may not be the greatest at any given thing, but there are things that I am good at and I need to start giving myself the credit, and I'm not speaking from an arrogant state of point. I want to go back to that humility thing, being humble I have a new definition for that now. For me, it's not placing myself at the very bottom. To me now, humility is just taking up the space that I was meant to take up. It's not me seeking to take up anybody else's space. It's not me trying to use anybody else's gifts. It's not me trying to live like anybody else. It's, basically, it's just me doing what I'm supposed to do in my lane and not shrinking back from all that I have been created to be.
Speaker 1:You know, one of my favorite verses in the Bible is from Jeremiah, chapter one, verse five, where Jeremiah God is talking to Jeremiah and he says before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you. And he goes on to talk about how he's been chosen and called and appointed to something great. And if I have to latch on and anchor to anything in life. For me, that is the verse, because I know that, because of who my creator is, he did not make a mistake in the way that he crafted Justin. Now, does Justin make mistakes? Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But when I am seeking to live an authentic and unique life, when I am seeking not to be like anybody else, but to just live in my gifts and to live in what I know I've been created to do, then I find so much joy and so much satisfaction in the way that I've been created that there is literally no room for me to look at what somebody else is doing and take the time to compare myself to them. Y'all. It's been a whole mindset shift and I've had to deal with my heart. It's been a lot of prayer, it's been a whole mindset shift and I've had to deal with my heart. It's been a lot of prayer, it's been a lot, and I still slip up at times. But again, I think that if you are going to make that shift, if you find yourself in a position where you're looking at everybody else's business and you're wondering how they got so big, if you're looking at everybody else's podcast, or if you're looking at everybody else's studio that they're running, or if you're looking at somebody else's skills and singing or anything else. We have to stop looking at other people and we have to really start looking at ourselves. How was I created? What do I do? Well, and again, y'all it is a mindset shift, and so, since I'm giving out some strategies for stopping comparing yourself, let's go ahead and do this, okay? So I've talked about focusing on what you have, so when you feel your mind wandering off to what other people have, try to focus on yourself instead.
Speaker 1:Dr Claire Nakajima suggests that if you focus on yourself and you figure out what works for you, rather than feeling like you have to fit a mold that works for someone else that works for someone else, you can be open to learning from others, but in a way that makes it your own. You're no longer trying to be like somebody else. You're admiring what somebody has, but you're not trying to be like them. There is a fine line between comparison I'm sorry, between jealousy and respecting what somebody else has. When you're jealous, you want to be like them, you want to take what they have, but when you respect what somebody else has, you understand they have their thing, just like you have your thing and you can respect and honor what they have their thing, just like you have your thing and you can. You can respect and honor what they have without putting yourself down. Think about what you were grateful for in your life and just write it down so that it stays fresh in your mind, so that when you want to start being like somebody else, you're like man, I'm kind of great too, I'm okay. And now again, I'm not saying be arrogant, say that I don't have anything else to work on. No, that's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is you have to recognize what is good about you and what is great about you, because within every person is something that is worthy of being recognized.
Speaker 1:Next, compete with yourself. You hear people say all the time I don't compete with anybody else. I compete with myself to see if I have grown. Year to date, I look back at myself a year ago to see if I've grown, and I want to be grown in a different way a year from now. Compete with yourself, focus on your personal goals, focus on your personal success, your personal development. Think about how far you've come in the last five years, the last three years, the last one year, even over the last few months. It's been said a lot and I think it bears saying here.
Speaker 1:We often look at people and think about how good they have it, but we don't know what they've had to go through to get to that point. And I think sometimes for us to compare ourselves to them and say, oh, if I could only sing like so-and-so, my life would be amazing. But are you willing to pay the same price that they've had to pay? Are you willing to go through the same ups and downs that they've had to go through? I mean seriously, seriously. So, instead of looking to compete with others and beat others, compete with yourself, because there is enough room in this world for everybody to be who they've been created to be.
Speaker 1:Next, let's talk about the mindset piece, and this is another strategy to help you get over the comparison. So we know that mindset has a big impact, and if you've listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know that I'm big on the mind. So the next time you find yourself thinking that as an individual, that an individual has something you admire or that you would like to have, try to shift your mindset, you may be thinking why am I not like this or what's wrong with me. Instead, think about what you can do to get closer to what they have, or how you can better yourself to get that quality. You don't want to be them, but you may be able to develop some of what they have and twist it so that it becomes yours and it is authentic to who you are. Okay, yes, another person may have something that you don't, but try to see it as an opportunity to grow and not an indictment on who you are. That eliminates the guilt that inevitably comes when we compare ourselves.
Speaker 1:Celebrate your achievements Okay. I think this one goes without saying. But again, dr Claire Nakajima says that if you, that if someone is good at something or has a quality that you admire, that doesn't mean that you don't have your own strengths and talents and abilities and attributes that deserve to be admired as well. You just have to take the time, come on. You just have to take the time to acknowledge, and I think, I think that so many of us, that's where we fail. We don't take the time to acknowledge what we do right, what's going right in our lives, and when we don't take that time to acknowledge and to celebrate, then we let those moments just slip through our fingertips. We only remember the bad things, but we never stop to celebrate the good things. And I'm challenging you to take the time to celebrate what's going right in your life, because I guarantee that even in the darkest of the dark, there's still something. There's still something I can remember.
Speaker 1:There was a moment and this might have been years ago when I was so caught up in the throes of this person that I wanted to be like. This was someone in my life that I saw them getting all the shine and I was like why Something has to be wrong with me, as to why nobody's noticing me. We do the same thing. How come nobody's noticing me? How come nobody's giving me my flowers? And it was such a toxic mindset. And I remember sitting down and writing a song and letting somebody hear it, and they said man, that's a beautiful song, wow, wow. And I had to stop for a minute and say, well, I actually I wrote a song and it is a beautiful song. I don't have to be like this person. They can be like them and I can be like me, because evidently, being me, that's the move. Like that's cool.
Speaker 1:I don't have to strive to be anybody else, and what I'm telling you is that you don't have to strive to be like anybody else, because what's in you is in you for a reason, it's in you for a purpose and it's to reach others through who you are doing, what you do, the way that nobody else can do it. But you, so write that book, even if it's the same topic as a book you've already read. It's going to come from a different slant, right, it's going to come from a different slant, right, it's going to come from a different slant because they're them and you're. You, so write that song, even if it, you know, has elements of what somebody else is doing. It's coming from your experiences and from your hearts. And no, we're not plagiarizing and we're not using chat, gpt to get things across.
Speaker 1:No, but what I'm saying is, if it comes out of you, it's going to naturally be different, because you're different than every other person on the face of the earth in your authenticity, in the fact that nobody can be you, no matter how hard they try, and you can't be anybody else, no matter how hard you try. So you've got to reconcile it. You have to reconcile and be okay with being who you are Understanding that there will never be another you. There could never be another you, and there will never be another person to walk the face of the earth who can do what you do. That thought in itself should eliminate every ounce of comparison from your mind and from your heart. Because I've said it before, I'll say it again you are quite literally one of one.
Speaker 1:Psalms 139, verse 14, says this Psalms 139, verse 14, says this I will praise you, o God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and what that means is that God took great care and great concern and he was very detail-oriented when he constructed who you are and who you would be. That is praiseworthy, that is honorable, and the fact that such care and concern was created with you and with me, that has to be something that we stop, consider and marvel over, and then our hearts should be filled with gratitude because we're not accidental. There is no accident about us. How we got here may or may not have been planned, but the fact that you're here is not an accident. It's not an accident that you exist at this time in the history of the world. It's not an accident that you have your gifts, talents and abilities at this time, at this point in the history of the world, and you just gotta you gotta be okay with it. You have to reconcile it, you have to proudly be it. You have to be it out loud. You have to do it with humility. Take up your space. Don't shrink from who you are. Be all that you have been called to be, be all of your purpose, walk all of your pathway, explore all of life that's been afforded to you, and I believe if you do that, you won't even have a modicum of time to spend wishing that you could be like everybody else. You hear me All right?
Speaker 1:So this has been episode 70 of Pep Talk. I'm your host, coach J, encouraging you to take pride in who you are and to recognize that you are fearfully and wonderfully made and you are a treasure, you are a gift, you are a present that is evident in the present. I know that's corny, I know that's corny, but it's true, it's still true, and so I want to know your thoughts on today's episode. If you struggle with comparison, kind of tell me what specific, what areas do you find yourself most comparing yourself to others in? If you don't struggle with it, tell me what are some strategies that you use to get yourself out of that mode of thinking. When it wants to come up, just click on the fan mail link in the show notes the Buzzsprout show notes and I will see you all next week for episode 71. But you know how we end every episode Keep it love, keep it light and keep it peppy. Reach out to us, let us know what you're thinking. We will see you next week. Y'all be blessed, peace.