I spent years thinking my ‘competitive edge’ kept me succeeding, and yes, that’s what I thought it was. In reality, it made me obsessed with perfection that I desperately clung to, and if I slipped—ohhh boy. The depression would wash over me, and stay in bed for a week.
I thought; the harder I worked, the less likely I would fall into the spiral. Whelp. I was wrong, sooo…very wrong.
In every situation, I would start comparing myself to people. How much money do they make? What clothes do they wear? What do they do for workouts? What do they drive? It turns out this isn’t rare; Psychology Today says, “10 percent of our thoughts involve comparisons of some kind”.
This obsession with where I am isn’t good enough and kept me in a cycle of anxiety and feeling like a failure. Yes, I, who takes on impossible things, have said out loud… “I feel like a failure.”
If you are human, you have done this. Compare yourself to others and destroy whatever it is that makes you unique. So how do we change it?
You check your social media usage.
I have done it, gone down the rabbit hole of someone’s entire social media, and thought, “I’ll never be that successful.” I have followed the influencers’ perfectly curated pages and thought, “oh my god, how is anyone’s life this perfect?”
Get rid of them! If it triggers you, you need to stop. If you can’t remove them or prevent yourself from looking, delete social media for a bit. I do it any time when I’m at a low point. Because watching others’ perfect moments while you are hurting triggers self-loathing, and I am not doing that to myself.
Have an honest conversation with yourself
We have ZERO ideas about what is going on in people’s lives. We only see what they want us to see. So when you start telling yourself someone has it better than you, seriously think about that. They take amazing vacations and have all the best clothes; you don’t know if they are in massive debt. They have the perfect partner and family; maybe their partner is miserable to be around at home; we don’t know. As soon as I started saying, “okay, but what about this?” and knowing I would never know, I stopped comparing myself because the only person’s life I could truly understand was my own.
Celebrate your wins
The number of times I didn’t bother to celebrate something because it wasn’t ‘there’ yet hurts my soul to look back on it now. What even is ‘there’? Those moments and you ARE good enough you did what YOU had to do to get there. So enjoy your accomplishments! Someday you’ll be thankful you did.
Let’s cue up some Eminem “You only get one shot; do not miss your chance to blow”. It’s your life; own it!’
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