Stop Comparing Yourself!
It’s easy to be scrolling on social media and see a photo of someone living their so-called best life and start to feel rubbish about your life. Saying “I wish I was on their holiday”, “Her husband seems so perfect, I want that”, “Their family always seem happy, ours just fights all the time”, “She always looks so good”. The list goes on. Before you know it, you have gone down a spiral of feeling not happy with your life, feeling not enough, feeling like you want what someone else has.
This makes you feel so rubbish about yourself. I know, I’ve been there. I would get sucked into that rabbit hole of looking at what others had and thinking “why haven’t I got that?” it would make me question so many things in my life and I’d feel sh*t about myself.
One particular one was when I had another business years ago, there was someone else running the same business not far from me and she had posted that she was fully booked. I saw that post and thought to myself “why is she fully booked and I’m not?” it really upset me and sent me into a spiral of not feeling good enough. If I kept seeing things like this, it would be easy to think I wasn’t good enough all the time and give up on my business. I actually sold my business not because I didn’t feel good enough, actually the opposite. I grew my confidence and wanted to do what I’m doing now.
Anyway, back to the story. I saw another of her posts that showed her husband and she had mentioned that she worked part time, so her business was something extra. This felt like the universe was telling me I couldn’t compare myself to anyone. It was a aha moment. Even though we had the same business we were so different. I’m guessing her husband worked and I know she worked part time. I had just left my job to run my business and I was a single mum, so financially we were so different. My fully booked was probably 3-4 times the amount of her fully booked and when I realised that everything changed. I could have been posting that I was fully booked if I was in her situation, but I wasn’t.
None of us are on the same path, we all have different journeys. We all want different things in life. Even some of the posts that used to bother me, like fancy holidays when I thought about it I realised I didn’t want those kind of holidays they weren’t me. Yet, why was I scrolling and letting it bother me, that is what social media does unfortunately and it’s easy to get sucked in by in. You have to remember that what you see online is a small proportion of someone’s life. Even if you’re thinking of offline, you don’t see everything. There will be people where you think they have everything and look so happy, but I guarantee you their life isn’t perfect, who’s is.
When someone’s post triggers you, try exploring it abit more. Ask yourself “why is that post triggering me?” “have they got something I want?” “What is it making me feel?” this will help you identify abit deeper.
Sometimes when we see things and we feel jealous, it’s because that’s something that we want. If that’s the case then that’s a great indicator for you to work towards for you to achieve it too. Sometimes it can be triggering because you don’t feel their values match yours. For instance, if they were posting about their flashy car and it was triggering you, it could be because you aren’t flashy and find it icky, but yet you’re still comparing yourself and thinking “they are doing so well and I’m not” but you already know that you aren’t into flashy cars and you’d spend your money a different way, you might like holidays, doing up your house or investing. It doesn’t make you not good enough.
You can mute them, unfollow them or defriend them and next time you see someone’s post remember that’s a small percentage of their life and you are enough just the way you are.
Love, Lisa x