Hi, and welcome back to the Awfully Quiet Podcast. Thank you for tuning in this week. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you today. Before we get started, let me tell you something about this morning. I hope that you're not getting annoyed yet with me talking about cycling class, but this is really changing my work week.

Like. Imagine this, it's a Monday morning, it's in the middle of winter, it's cold and wet outside and I'm on my way to cycling class, 7am Monday morning and I feel like, I feel like I've already accomplished so much today now and it's the most amazing energy coming out of these sessions like, Fully exhausted, like can't possibly give anything else than I've just did and this instructor that we had this morning, she's amazing and she has such great energy.

And I always feel like I'm taking that energy with me out of cycling class and into my day and I can really put a finger on it now because I, I feel like that with everyone. And this is part of my personality. It's part of my projector being. that I draw energy from other people. I have very little energy by myself.

So it's almost like depending on who I'm with and how they make me feel, I either feel really bad or I feel really, really good. So going into that cycling class on a Monday morning with like. A lot of people who are, you know, committed, motivated, just crazy enough to go to a workout, in the early morning.

Plus with this amazing instructor, it just fuels me. It just puts me in such a different mood and I really needed a different mood. There's a lot going on at work at the moment. there's podcasts to record. So I feel like. Doing this almost makes me a different person, like going into my day and I really want to start it.

I really did want to start by saying that. Now, I'm hoping that you are, that you found your way into this week as well. It's, Tuesday when you will be listening to this and I have a conversation for you that has popped up time and time again, all throughout my life. and especially my career. And it's about comparison.

It's about that fact that we tend to compare ourselves to others. And we tend to compare ourselves especially to those of the same age. Do you ever do that when you meet someone and you find out their age and you're, you're almost like, Benchmarking yourself against them where you go. Oh, this person is 32 as well.

Where are they in their career? How, what does it mean about where I am? Am I better than them? Did they achieve more? In their life up until now. And I'm always like going through categories, you know, from, from e life perspective. lots of my friends are married, have, you know, families are getting babies.

And I'm almost like, you know, almost like comparing myself to those. Societal norms, and it happens to me all my life, like, literally from when I was a small child, comparing myself to my friends, comparing myself to my schoolmates, all the way up to university, and always like, you know, the people of the same age, and that has really stuck with me, in a career context, just.

Whenever I hear about somebody doing really, really well, I'm trying in my head to like, almost like justify why they are doing so well. Oh, they must be like five years older than me. So they, that would almost justify them being in a, in a different place or being in a place where I really want to be, but I'm not beating myself up because they're older than me.

Now, when that same thing happens, With a younger person, with a person the same age as me, or, dare I say it, a younger person than me, who's already achieved what I really want to achieve. That's when the negative self talk really starts to happen for me. And that's when I go, Oh, you know, feeling really triggered, feeling really bad about myself.

And it's not a feeling I'm proud of. I always beat myself up. For having these thoughts and for comparing myself to others, because we all know we shouldn't be doing it. Right? we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to other people. And, you know, where does this come from? it stems from societal norms and expectations that dictate certain milestones or achievements.

That we should be reaching at specific ages. So part of that is not our fault. Part of that is society telling us, you know, if you're a woman by the age of 25, you, but I have your, you know, your family planning all figured out yet. You better get your babies in between your 20 and 30. not too sure when you're going to do your masters because that's also an expectation, but you know how these things work.

It's almost like. there are milestones that ought to happen at a certain time. Part of that is society, part of that is biology, but it's out there. So, it's not just us making this up. And part of the reason why we do this is For some sort of self assessment, like comparing ourselves to our peers or people the same age, it sets a basis for us.

It almost sets the bar at a certain level, and we're assessing whether we're right up there, whether we're below, or whether we're above that bar. And that then, tells us how we should be feeling about ourselves in the context of who we're with, in the context of, who we're comparing ourselves to. So, what I realized at some point is that the people I would look up to, people who I would deem successful, people who seemed, seemed happy to me with where they were at, it always felt like they are not comparing themselves to others.

They are not in this hamster wheel of, you know, am I better? Am I not good enough yet? Compared to this other person, they would always just track their own accomplishments against themselves, you know, trying to be better than the person you were yesterday. This is what we're told, right? And common career advice would also tell us to not compare ourselves in the first place because it's toxic and because at the end of the day.

We don't want to switch with everyone else. We don't really want to trade lives with the person that we're comparing ourselves to as we're scrolling social media. We really want that vacation that they're on, but we don't want to switch with them because there are so many things in our lives that we're proud of, that we're grateful for, and if we're really honest with ourselves, we shouldn't be comparing so much.

We, should probably stop doing that. Now, what I did is I asked chat GPT for advice for, you know, what are the things that you should be doing if you compare yourself, to others, and I really want to bring you on this journey. And I promise you, you have not tuned into this podcast for me to recite what I, what I read on chat GPT.

I'm going to give you my version of what I think we should all be doing when it comes to comparison ideas. Now, common career advice, and this is off of JetTPT, as I said, will tell you to focus on your own journey. Focus on yourself. Stay with yourself. You are not living somebody else's life. You do not know the context that they're in.

You want to stay with yourself, concentrate on your personal growth, on your own progress, and that is what ultimately will allow you to feel better about yourself and to reach the goal that you want to reach. Number two, is you want to celebrate your achievements. You want to make sure that as you go out into the world and as you experience others of the same age, at a younger age, doing, you know, better things that, that you are doing right now, as you do that, you want to have.

Your achievements in the back of your head and almost like instantly remind yourself of yes, this triggers me, but at the same time, I am glad for where I am, I've achieved a lot. I can be proud of myself. So almost like being able to slightly pivot in that moment and get back to yourself. Number three is.

Set goals in line with your values. You may be comparing yourself to somebody else, but maybe they have completely different values than you do. And maybe the same thing that they've done or the same thing that they're doing right now that you find so admirable is It's actually not really for you because you've got, you know, completely different set of values.

So you always want to set goals based on your own values, interests, capabilities, rather than just meeting arbitrary benchmarks that somebody else has set for you. Number four is surround yourself with. Supportive people, you want to surround yourself with people who uplift and encourage you, you want to go to cycling class where the instructor leaves you feeling so energized, so inspired, so motivated that you take this vibe, this energy into your entire day.

That's the kind of people you want to surround yourself with and it doesn't always have to be your best friends. It doesn't always have to be people you're super close with. It can be that random stranger that gives a great workout class. Number five is embrace your uniqueness. Embrace your individuality and recognize that everyone's journey is different and beautifully so.

Now, I always feel like The people I compare myself with and the people I look up to most, it feels like they stay in their lane. They're focused on themselves. They embrace that they want to do things differently than the rest of them. And that's what gets us so inspired. I feel like that's, at the end of the day, what we're really jealous of.

It's like somebody who does things. With their own style, in their own way, and that's really admirable. So, try and do that for yourself. Try and find your way back to, this is great, but what is it that I really want to do? How am I, how does it look different for me than it would like for someone else?

This is Common Career Advice, and now I want to know from you whether that's helpful or whether that's already something where you go like, well, that's great, but does it really help me change anything about the way I feel when I compare myself to others? Maybe no. So I want to give you something slightly different to what you have just heard.

Like not five little tips to, find your way back to yourself and not compare yourself anymore. Because frankly, I don't think that you should stop. To compare yourself to others. What I think you should do when you find yourself comparing yourself to somebody else I feel like you should lean in. Lean into that feeling and start to almost look at yourself from the outside.

Try to understand why that feeling came up in the first place. Why are you comparing yourself to that other person that you're seeing? Where does this come from? What are they doing that you would really like to do too? What are they experiencing that you would like to experience? Where are they in their life, in their career that triggers you, that gives you like a bit of an icky feeling, a bit of like fear of missing out, or you would really like to be there to lean in and understand the clues that this gives you, what are the clues, the learnings that you can take away from this, because if you just Go about it and feel bad about yourself, beat yourself up for comparing yourself in the first place.

You're gonna walk away without a learning. You're gonna walk away just feeling ashamed for having that feeling in the first place, which you shouldn't. Whenever that happens for you, what I want you to do, and this is what you're really going to remember from today's episode, is I want you to take the clues and leave the bullshit.

Take the clues means You're going to derive the learnings that you can take away from this, the why are you comparing yourself to this person? And then you want to leave all the feelings that make you feel bad about yourself. And first and foremost, that thought, that negative self talk that tells you to stop comparing in the first place.

And what a bad person you are for comparing yourself with somebody else. You should be grateful. You should be happy where you are. Don't compare yourself to others, right? That's what you tell yourself, isn't it? That's the first thing I want you to stop doing. Be nice to yourself. Be kind. And speak to yourself as you would with a friend in that moment.

Oh, you know what? You're comparing yourself to that person that just landed a new job. Because you really want to land a new job and maybe you've tried before, but it didn't happen yet. So naturally you're feeling triggered by this. You would so much love to celebrate that promotion, that new job as well.

You would so much like to get out of your current situation and be able to do that same thing. So take that away as something that might fuel you, as something that might allow you to go down that same road. and achieve the same thing. But then leave all the bullshit around feeling bad about comparisonitis in the first place, feeling bad about comparing yourself, feeling bad about, you know, all the things that you haven't done yet.

Because at the end of the day, You want to think about the way they got where they are right now. You don't know. You don't know what it took them to get where they are now, where you are currently admiring them. You don't know what it took to get on that pedestal that you're putting them on. And If you had all the background, you would probably feel in awe of what they've just done.

I'm not saying it's easier for other people. It's always harder than it looks like from the outside. So that's another clue for you. That's something that you want to find out if possible. It's like, if I compare myself to somebody else, they've probably done something that I would like to have. And therefore they've probably had an approach that I haven't considered yet.

They've probably done something that I wasn't willing to do just yet. They have probably gone through the hardship. And at some point seeing someone else that they've compared themselves to. So that's what you want to think about. That's another clue you want to take away. How did they get there? How did they do this?

And if you listen to interviews of people who have had success in their careers, who, you know, have all the accolades, who, you know, have been crazy places in their careers, you will always hear stories about hardship, about, you know, vulnerabilities. It's about insecurities, negative self talk, and it will always come from a place of.

You're comparing yourself to somebody else and then taking the necessary steps to get to where you really want to be. So, if you are in that situation, take those clues, embrace it, take a moment to think to yourself, Oh, this is the situation again. I'm the situation. I'm going to handle this differently now.

I'm not going to feel bad about myself. I'm gonna Lean in. I'm going to take the clues, and I'm going to leave the bullshit. I'm going to reframe the way I think about comparing myself to others. I'm going to take something away that is going to be helpful for me. And I'm going to learn something that's going to allow me to go in that same direction.

I feel like whenever I do a session like this, There's so much of that that I'm telling myself, because I am right there with you. I have those same feelings. Whenever somebody new joins the team at work, whenever I compare myself to somebody else in podcasting, they tend to be younger and they tend to be They tend to have done things that I haven't necessarily done for myself yet.

And the reason why is that I just started with podcasting and not too long ago, I just started in marketing. That's not the first thing I did in my career. I pivoted into marketing. So naturally, whenever I see someone with a track record in marketing, I always feel that little bit of a trigger in terms of like, Oh, it must be nice to have like all these years of experience lettering up to where we are now.

And obviously that person is, you know, has something that I don't have. And it might be better suited for, a next step that I'm envisioning in the workplace. But I'm trying to get back to myself. What does it mean about me? How can I embrace my unique way? How can I get back to myself? Switch the negative self talk To something that's actually helpful for me and not necessarily stop comparisonitis, but lean into it, make it something that's helpful for me.

And so as much as I'm telling you how to deal with that, I'm telling that to myself, I'd love to hear from you. I'm hoping you take this into this week and, you know, just be able to experience these situations differently. Next time you scroll social media, next time you see somebody do something that's crazy and that triggers you in a certain way, somebody you compare yourself with and you choose to approach it differently than you would have.

last week. So I always want to hear from you. I always want to know how you're dealing with this, whether this is helpful for you. And, so if you do have any questions, if you do want to just let me know how you feel about this, send me a DM at awfullyquietpodcast. And I hope you tune in next week. Bye.