how comparison kills and how we are killing it in 2023?

The grass is always greener on the other side. It is not, and we know the counter phrase. The grass is always greener where you water it.

It might cross your mind that you are so confident in yourself that you don’t compare yourself with others. You don’t necessarily have to directly compare yourself to a person to be comparing yourself. You can compare yourself with a standard, with a mold of what you think something should be.

Our brain receives so much information every day that it can’t help but notice trends and store the data. Seeing people’s super aesthetic lives every day can make you think that the reason you don’t have the success, the body, the partner, or anything that they portray as beautiful in social media is because either there is something wrong with you or you don’t use a product they have.

Combine the second reason with the first and you have yourself a marketing tactic.

It is draining to think that nothing in your life is as perfect as it should be or as pretty as it should look. You may not think this right now, but it truly affects in the long term.

Phrases like “if he wanted to, he would” have led us to set unrealistic expectations in relationships from what we see of what other people choose to share of their relationship online.

The other day I saw a video of a guy going out for a walk, picking flowers for his girl and making a bouquet and wrapping it all aesthetically. It leaves you wondering of your worth, if someone will ever go THAT far for you. It leaves you in the situation in which you know you would be more than happy with supermarket flowers, but now you want those specific flowers because if he wanted to he would.

This overconsumption of content makes us consciously or subconsciously test our lives against what we see around us.

If the example I just gave was hard to grasp, think of the beauty standards. You can be more than happy with your body, but when what you see praised around you is different, you suddenly ask yourself what is wrong with you.

This is how comparison kills. Now, how do we kill comparison this upcoming year?

It is hard. We live in a society that constantly pushes ideals on us and then profits of our lack of whatever they pushed on us. It is tiring and I want you to know that it is not your fault.

It is even scarier to think about when you realize you have grown up this way and that it will probably be very hard to fight this.

The three steps.

1. Your top three comparisons

What are the things that you compare the most about your life with others? These can show up in our lives like the things that we are constantly trying to change and fix. It can be your relationship, your friendships, clothing style, cleanliness, lifestyle, job, e.t.c.

It could be anything that you compare yourself to, but thing of the three biggest ones. The ones that maybe cause you the most pain and the most distraction from your own life.

For example, one of mine is rest time. All I see over my TikTok “for you” page and Pinterest is people lounging, living life and finding time to relax. It makes me wonder why am I not capable of organizing my time in a better manner and why when I have the chance to rest, I never take it.

2. Eliminating content

With the analysis done above, we can then move to the next step, eliminating content. I will continue with the example above. For me, those pictures can sometimes be a reminder of what I want to achieve and sometimes they can have a very negative effect and make me question my life choices. This is when you eliminate content and curating your feed on whatever platform you can to stop this comparison.

This is why I like Instagram more than TikTok (very unpopular opinion). I like only seeing my main feed on Instagram which is of the people that I have followed, and like that I not only see highlights of their lives (although Instagram is still mostly highlights), but I also see other things they share, creating a more human experience.

While on TikTok the main feed is full of barely the same people (unless you go to the following section), which in my opinion is not as fun. Be completely honest with yourself and if you have that one person who you look up all the time to make yourself feel bad, maybe it’s time to block.

3. Deep acceptance and observance

At the end of the day, we can’t eliminate all of our triggers. We can’t fully turn our heads to the world and pretend everything is okay. There is internal work that also needs to be done. We can look at what we can do from our side to feel more connected with our own lives. If what we normally compare to is one of our (healthy) goals in life, then we also can see how can we approach it from a different angle that doesn’t degrade us.

This week I’ll leave you with tasks instead of prompts:

1. After learning about your three comparisons, write a few paragraphs on the history you have with each of them. How did they come to be in your life, and how are they showing up now?

2. Make a list of 3 things that trigger you, or make you feel bad about yourself regarding each of the three comparisons (i.e. comparing myself fin social media, seeing trends).

3. Tweak one of these triggers for each of the comparisons. Change the way you look at things, eliminate content, or do as you see necessary. Get creative.

4.Write yourself a gratitude note in the ambit of each of these comparisons. For example, if the space is relationships, write gratitude note to yourself for everything you have learned about it in the past and how you are ready to learn more.

Although these could be considered prompts, I feel like the word task really implies that you have to do the suggestions that I have made. Remember to be observant of the feelings that come up while you do this. These feelings are to be felt and acknowledged.