152: How To Stop Comparison Curse as an Online Coach

Ever find yourself comparing or measuring your coaching journey against others? You're not alone.

I call this the “comparison curse” and it affects many online coaches. We see these other big name coaches seemingly perfect at their craft, and it can be easy to feel not good enough in comparison. This is NOT true and when you can move past this curse and confidently shine as your authentic self, you’ll be able to make a huge impact in your own unique way!

In this episode I share my experience with comparison curse to normalize it for you all, as well as my tips for moving through this and finding confidence. My hopes are that this episode will inspire you to stop comparing yourself and start shining as the star you are!

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Transcript

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Welcome to let's get visible entrepreneurs. This is the podcast where we bring you the secrets behind what it actually takes to get seen, get known, and get more clients. I'm your host, Christine Ammerman, and I'm sharing my best strategies from over two decades of experience as a media marketing and messaging expert to help you expand your exposure, grow your personal brand, attract dream clients and more, all while staying true to your authentic self and unique vision. If you're a passionate, heart centered entrepreneur, thought leader, or expert looking to stand out from the crowd with confidence, you're in the right place. Are you ready? Let's get visible. Have you ever compared yourself to other people? Maybe your favorite influencer? Maybe friends that you ran a coaching program with? Maybe people that you admire, that you follow, and as a result of that comparison, found yourself feeling lacking or wanting or wondering, like what in the world you are missing? Well, today our episode is all about comparison and how to break the comparison curse and embrace your own journey, your own path. What I have seen over the last nine years is that it's so, so, so common. In fact, probably almost all of us do it to look around other people in our space who are talking about the results that, that we want to have when it comes to whatever k months or whatever k followers or however many clients that they have, how quickly they did that, with how much ease their simple system and make ourselves wrong and judge ourselves. And I've coached a lot of clients around this. I've dealt with it myself. Because almost never, when we are comparing ourselves, do we choose to compare ourselves to people where we're going to come up feeling like we've won, where we're going to feel like, oh, wow, I'm really, really doing a great job. No, we're going to compare ourselves to people who are further ahead than us in these metrics that matter to us. And we're going to make ourselves wrong and we're going to judge ourselves and we're going to get stuck and we're going to beat ourselves up. What am I doing wrong? What am I missing? I know I'm good at what I do. Why am I having this particular struggle? Why am I not further along? Well, it really, really is true. That quote that says comparison is the thief of joy. And this is, this comparison curse can make us so miserable and distract us from what we're meant to be doing, what we're meant to be doing in our businesses and with our calling. So I can tell you, look, we've all admired these people from afar. We've all thought, wow, if only I had what they had, everything would be fine. If only I had a multi six figure or a seven figure business, whatever. If only I was doing 20k months, let's say, or 50k months or 100k months or whatever it is, then everything would be great. And we forget that these people have become successful on a path, through a path, on a journey that we will never know the depths of, that we will never know the highs and lows of. For real, because we are not in their house, living with them, seeing up close. And I can also tell you, having seen behind the scenes of some of these businesses that you probably look at, admire, wonder how they do it. I am always reminded that we are, we are not so different. Even though we act like it must be so, so, so different. Or it must. In one way, we act like it must be so different. In another way, we act like it's just around the corner, right? And it might be. But what we forget is that they're always dealing with problems of their own and that social media is their representation for marketing their business, not what's actually going on in their life. Even if they share some behind the scenes and some vulnerabilities, like the nitty gritty of what's really going on in their life, what they're in at the time, you just have no idea. And while those big months solve some problems, they don't solve every problem. Sometimes I know I can't have been triggered by people who started at the same time as me and then went on to this, like, multiple of success that feels like it just skyrocketed way beyond me. You know, what am I doing wrong, right? In no way is any of that helpful. This comparison, this question, what am I doing wrong? This is not a helpful question. It also can help keep us playing small. Right? And keep us trying to play their game instead of our own. Trying to play their game instead of our own, because they have their own unique skill sets, they have their own unique strengths. They have their own unique weaknesses as well. And when we try to build a business exactly like someone else's, we wind up building their business, which usually doesn't serve us. So when we do that, we are taking our eyes off of the direction we're meant to go in, and we're trying to, like, read someone else's gps to a different destination with a different route. And it. Can. I see this all the time, trying to implement strategies that we have no business implementing because they don't fit for our personality or they don't fit for our audience size or they don't fit with our energy or whatever, but we really, really want the same result that that person had. And so we can pick a strategy and then see that our favorite influencer or person that we look up to or follow is doing something else and decide to jump on that right away without really, really taking a look and removing the comparison from the conversation that's happening in our head or out loud. The comparison curse makes us feel not enough. And look, we all struggle with this as humans. And in the coaching space, it's really, really loud because it's so easy for people to broadcast their wins and it makes us shrink. And it makes us shrink. And one little point that I want to point out is, you may have heard this before, but in this space you can make as much money as you want and maybe not have a profit margin to speak of. Like, what I'm saying is somebody could be bragging about how they're making seven figures and be spending all but like a dollar 100 or $1,000 of that a month. And I mean it. I've seen it. Didn't mean for that to rhyme. But there are things like that. It's so much is so much more is going on under the surface that you have no idea. And you don't actually know how profitable their business is. You don't actually know how successful they're being. You just know one metric, and that's the metric that everybody in this industry focuses on and tries to chase. And I would encourage you to think more holistically than that. What do you want your life to look like? Right? The name of my business is life with passion. What do you want your life to look like? How do you want it to feel? How much you want to actually be able to pay yourself? Right? I know seven figure business owners who paid themselves less than I've paid myself in some months. Like, I don't want to have a whole, a much more complex business and be paying myself less. Right. So these are the kinds of examples that I want you to, I want to poke holes in the comparison curse for you. And I want you to know that just because you are not where you thought you would be or where you want to be, one of the biggest things to remember, and this is so annoying, but this can be helpful for you as you coach your clients, too, and maybe you can play with it for yourself, is you and your soul have your own journey. You are on your own souls path. And so are your clients. And one thing that we really, really want to control, especially when we're comparing ourselves, is the timeline in which things happen. And I'm here to tell you, we can't control that, very unfortunately, because no two journeys are the same. Right. You're on your own path. If you're frustrated that a client isn't getting results and you're worried that you're maybe not doing your best within the container of the timeframe that they're working with, you, remember, this is their path and you can't control the results that they get. You can control how you show up for them, and that's it. So with you, the same is true. And that can be frustrating. It can be really hard to turn that advice around and take it in ourselves. But what can you acknowledge is going right? What can you celebrate? We are terrible, as high achievers, as type a's, as perfectionists, or maybe you're, you know, consider yourself recovering from any of those things. We are terrible at celebrating. Typically, what would it look like to pick something to celebrate? You probably tell your clients to do this. Are you doing it? Are you celebrating? Are you marking your progress? Are you marking your progress? Because when you celebrate, it doesn't matter how and it doesn't have to cost any money and it doesn't have to look any certain kind of way when you celebrate, it makes it more likely that you will repeat the same behavior and have the same result that you're celebrating again, because it really anchors it in your brain. They've done studies about this. It's not going to make you lazy. It's not going to make you take your foot off the gas. It's going to make you repeat the behaviors and do it more in a way that is more self compassionate, kinder, more joyful, more loving to yourself and to others and more fulfilling. So how can you celebrate? Another thing is being really, really careful about who you read and who you follow. I do not scroll at this point in my journey. I don't do it. And when I open up the app, I'll usually see very specifically, I'm going to tell you exactly what I do. When I, when I open up an app, I'll usually see a top post. And usually it's one of my friends. And if it's one of my friends, I always like it. And then I go to do what I'm going to do. If I'm going to make a post, if I'm going to check my messages, whatever it is, I don't scroll. And that has improved my comparison curse massively. So if you're struggling, don't be afraid to limit or eliminate you're scrolling. And then also don't be afraid to unfollow people. If you see something that you can feel is sending you into a spiral, unfollow them. That's not serving you. Do you also have people around you? I voice note with voice memo with some moms in my life who are also in, in business. And similarly, and we have such great conversations asynchronously because that's our life. Right? And then we also are able to validate each other and give each other perspective in a way that is so, so useful. And you know how I met those people? I met them in group coaching programs. And I see all of the time how the members of our client attraction amplifier show up for each other, encourage each other, get together, whether it's cowork, whether they become referrals, girl partners. Sometimes they hire each other. Like, there's this whole ecosystem of support that's created when you cultivate these relationships with like minded people. And that's one of the reasons that I host a super small group is because I love being able to bring like minded community together, because I've gotten that feedback so much from my clients. Like, we absolutely love who you call in, who you bring in into your program. So do you have those people in your life right now also remembering why you're doing this? Yeah, you might be doing this to hit certain months, but if you're listening to this, you also are doing it. You have a deeper why. So are you connected to that why and letting that why drive you along with being on your own soul's path? Or are you just focused on trying to hack what someone else has done when you couldn't possibly hack it? Let's be honest, because you will never know their whole journey. You're just literally seeing the highlights real of where they are now. So I hope this conversation gave you some tips to move away from the constant comparison loop that might be running in your brain and begin to take back your power. And if this is helpful for you, I would love to invite you to follow, rate and review. Let's get visible entrepreneurs on Apple Podcasts and let us know how you're reclaiming your confidence and your own unique soul's journey as you grow your coaching business. Your story could be the encouragement someone else needs to hear today. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you in the next