Playing the Comparison Game

We’ve all done it…spent hours scrolling social media, hate following, and getting worked up about how skinny another blogger is or how big their new home build is going to be. I admit I do it all the time. It’s so unhealthy, yet so addicting. Why do we as women subject ourselves to this kind of criticism of our own lives? I have found that as my platform on Instagram has grown, so too has my time spent on the app. This can be both good and bad. On the one hand, I have met so many amazing women who I connect with on a personal and professional level and many other moms who share in the trials and tribulations of everyday mom-life. But on the other, I often fall victim to the deep dive on certain people’s perfectly curated pages wondering how they afford that 6000 square foot home, how their children can be perfectly behaved and pose for pictures all the time, and how they’ve achieved that killer body with zero cellulite after birthing more than 2 kids?? The thing to focus on when it comes to social media is to remind ourselves that we are not seeing the whole picture. Instagram is a highlight reel of people’s lives. I know this because I share on this platform all the time and of course, what I am sharing is only the positive stuff. I am not showing my messy house or my kid who hasn’t showered in 3 days or that my husband and I haven’t had a real conversation in over a week because we are so busy with work. So how do I stop the cycle? How do I stop the comparison game and focus on all that I DO have? For me, it’s about reframing my thinking and it’s taken many sessions with my therapist to start to get to this point.

Through therapy, I have learned that as humans we are programmed to compare and to think the worst. In fact, when we are in stressful situations, one of the easiest things for our brains to do is to think about what is wrong, rather than look at all that is going right. When I reframe my own thinking to realize this is how my brain is set up to function, I can readjust my thoughts, but it’s a process. It’s almost like I have to reteach my brain how to think positively. Don’t get me wrong, some people are inherently positive people, glass-half-full type of people, but I am just not one of those types. I tend to always expect the worst and hope for the best. I have also dealt with anxiety my whole life and as an anxious person, I always go towards negative thoughts, rather than positive ones. The last year and a half have been a rollercoaster for everyone and we have all been put into very stressful situations, especially working parents. So it makes sense that the negative thoughts cloud our thinking now more than they ever have. But as things start to go back to normal and our lives, hopefully, settle back down a little, it’s important for me to look at all that my family and I have gone through together in the last few months and the fact that we are all ok and thriving is something positive to focus on.

So what have I done to stop comparing myself to others? I’d love to sit here and tell you that I don’t anymore, but thats just not true. What I have done is started to focus on the positives before the negatives. So I don’t have a 5000 square foot, newly built home but I do have a beautiful, charming, historic home that we have been able to make our own over the last 11 years. So I may not have a size 2 body and am still struggling to lose those quarantine pounds, but my family and I are healthy and we are surviving a pandemic. So my kids may be on screens way more than I’d like them to be, but this is how they interact socially with their friends and in a year where they have lost so much, they need those connections, whichever way they can get them. These are the methods I am going to use to reframe my thinking. I won’t lie and say I am done comparing because I think that is just human nature, but knowing that the comparison game leads to negative thoughts is helping me stay away from letting them ruin my thinking. That’s the best I can do for now.

How do you deal with comparing yourselves to others? Let’s start giving each other the tools to think more positively!