42. Breaking Free from Comparison, Embracing Your Unique Journey

Discover how comparison affects your journey to health and happiness in Episode 42 of "Weight Loss Made Simple." Dr. Stacy Heimburger explores the pitfalls of constant comparison on mental health, offering strategies to shift focus back to personal progress and celebrate individual achievements. Learn how to cultivate self-compassion, embrace uniqueness, and avoid the comparison trap. Tune in for expert insights and actionable tips to enhance your mindful weight loss journey. Don't miss out—listen now!

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher.

Transcript

Welcome back to Weight Loss Made Simple today. I want to talk about comparison. This affects all of us, so make sure you listen if you have ever found yourself scrolling social media and then starting to feel a little less accomplished than the people you’re seeing, or you’re scrolling and you feel less attractive. You’re not alone. So I want to talk about what this can do and then maybe some strategies for shifting away from comparison. There are lots of journal articles about this, the impact of constant comparison. It really does affect our mental health. It can lead to increased stress, anxiety. We start to feel bad about ourselves. We start to focus on other people's achievements rather than our own, and it really undermines our happiness. So comparison is the thief of joy, right? It’s so true, especially when we talk about social media. You know, you’re not seeing people's worst days on there, right? I actually love when people go through and say, "This is how many filters I have on; this is what I really look like," so you can see you can't trust anything that's on social media.

But I find that comparison is pretty normal, right? I think this goes back to our caveman days where we were comparing in effort to make sure we weren’t too different. We didn’t want to get kicked out of the tribe for being wrong, for being different, because that meant danger. So I think that's where comparison started, but now it’s how different can I be, right? So then we start to compare in ways that are really unhealthy, and again, it’s never apples to apples. Sometimes my scroll will show me different entrepreneurs, and I'll hear about how they're making this much; they've made this many million dollars, whatever, and then I start to think about my business. But here's the thing, they're not in my business. They're not in my shoes. Most people did not go to medical school late and actually have a whole career started before I went to medical school. So I can't even compare my age because most of them were doctoring five to ten years before I was. I can't look at other businesses because most of them are not working full-time as a doctor and running two other businesses.

So when you rationally think about comparing yourself, it’s apples to oranges, and all it does is start to chip away and undermine any satisfaction or any accomplishment that you were feeling, right? So I can accomplish being a doctor, but then I see all these other doctors, and I'm like, "They're doing more than me, and they sound smarter than me, and they're speaking at this many conferences, and I'm only speaking at one conference this year." Well, a couple of years ago, I'm not speaking at any conferences this year. I must not be good enough. And all the work I'm doing with my clients and this podcast is undone by that thought. You are good enough. We are good enough just being us, right? You're perfect. You can always do better, but when we start comparing, we tend to look at what's lacking in us. Very rarely are we comparing, like, "Oh, that person is living on the street. I'm doing better than that." That's not usually where we're comparing, right? We're looking at someone and thinking, "They're so beautiful; I wish I was that beautiful. They're so successful; I wish I was that successful." It's just an opportunity to highlight what we think we're missing.

We have to stop focusing on other people's achievements. We have no idea how they got that beautiful house, that job, whatever. We have no idea. We don’t know their story. And all humans suffer in their own way. So when we look at these things, we think they’ve got it so great, but we don’t see the whole picture. We don’t know the whole story, and it’s not apples to apples. We want to look on social media or look and find someone at a business conference that's similar to us but maybe a little further along, find someone who’s on their weight loss journey but maybe a little further along, someone who has a hairstyle that we like that we maybe want to implement, but we just can’t get sucked down into this lack. We need to stay in a place of celebrating our achievements, celebrating what we're doing right, and that we're different, we're unique, and that's great.

So a short podcast today, but I just want to wrap up saying it’s natural to compare, but if it starts making you feel bad, think about getting rid of whatever that is, right? So if you are following someone on social media and you start to feel bad about yourself, like you aren't worthy, you're wrong, something's lacking, maybe unfollow them. If you're with someone that motivates you and gives you some ideas and some goals, that's amazing, but if you start to get into that lack, into that despair, see if you can remove that. Okay, there's enough going on. We don't need to intentionally put those messages in our way if we can avoid it. Okay, all right, I will talk to you next week. Thanks so much. Bye.