Am I Better Than You...and other thoughts on comparison.
/Do you find yourself constantly ranking yourself and your life? Your thoughts might sound like:
I can do better than that.
How does she always make it look so easy and effortless?
I’m glad I’m not there anymore.
Where does she get the money for that?
Must be nice…
The list could go on, and no matter what the thoughts are I know this to be true: we all have them and there IS something we can do about them.
Comparing yourself to others can be a default mechanism that is so deeply ingrained in your system you don’t even realize you are doing it. It is like a knee-jerk reaction that happens whenever you see something you want (or don’t want.) And here’s the thing, it will pretty much always feel bad.
Yep, even if you come out on top of the ranking, if you are really honest with yourself, it never feels good.
The good news is there are tools for moving through comparison.
Gratitude
The quickest way to move through a feeling of comparison, which includes envy and jealousy, is to think of what you are grateful for. It’s really hard to be jealous of someone else when you are feeling grateful for what you have.
Gratitude is something you can practice in the moment, as soon as a thought pops up. It takes very little time to shift that comparing perspective to a moment of joy. It does take awareness, and the good news is, the more you practice it, the easier and more natural it becomes!
Curiosity
What would happen if, instead of judging your comparison, you got curious about it? I think most of you who are reading this would willingly admit you don’t want to be in comparison, so when it pops up you might get a little judge-y.
I can’t believe I’m doing this again.
What is wrong with me?
Why can’t I just mind my own business?
Why does my brain always do this?
These kinds of questions show that you are telling yourself the story that thoughts of comparison make you a bad person. Nope. Thoughts of comparison make you a normal person.
We are not our thoughts.
Let me say that again…we are not our thoughts. We get to choose which thoughts we will keep and which ones we let go. So when these thoughts pop up you can begin asking yourself questions like this:
Oh, isn’t this interesting? I wonder why I’m feeling like this right now?
Is that something I really want?
What would it feel like to have that? Do I think I am deserving of that?
Why does it make me feel better to think I am better than her? What am I really feeling?
This practice isn’t always quite as quick as gratitude, but it works in a different sort of way. These are great journaling prompts for days when you’ve had comparison-itis. Journaling will really help you connect to your inner voice and find the truth about where these feelings are coming from and why. When you couple curiosity and gratitude together you will start to shift these feelings.
Retrain Your Brain
Imagine that your thought patterns are like hiking trails in your brain. The trails your thoughts go down the most are well-worn trails, maybe even boardwalks, that are easy hiking. You would never get lost on one of those trails.
When you decide you want to stop feeling a certain way, it doesn’t just happen overnight - you have to make new trails for those thoughts. And this is like bush-whacking. There are weeds and trees and grass taller than you that you have to cut down with a machete to make that trail. You have to go back to that new trail day after day, until you start wearing a path in.
And until that new path is worn in, the thoughts, which have a mind of their own, will want to go down the old, easy path. And it’s up to you to change their course.
I love using mantras for this purpose. When you have a thought of comparison pop up, acknowledge it and remind yourself what you actually want to be thinking. It could be something like this:
Kelly, comparison is the thief of joy. (I like to say my name, because it gets my attention.)
or, even better…
Kelly, choose joy. (See what I did here? I shortened it and gave myself the power to choose.)
So it would look like this:
“Must be nice…” - old path
“Kelly, choose joy.” - new path
You can combine this tool with gratitude and curiosity and that is a triple threat to thoughts of comparison!
Your mind does not have to be ruled by feelings of comparison. You can choose joy! You can feel gratitude! Think about how life would feel if you weren’t constantly ranking your life experience with everyone else’s!
Let me know how these work for you! You can also listen to an episode of In Her Voice about this topic right here!
If comparison is something that you struggle with, listening to your inner voice is the way out of that struggle. This is a great topic for a Deep Dive Session. Click here to schedule your’s today.