Hey, my friend! What is up? And welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big. Today's episode is going to be all about how to stop playing the comparison game. I know that we can relate to this. I know we all can relate to this because we're all human after all. But comparison is the thief of joy. We've all heard it right. I know you've read that quote. I know you've heard it before. And I think intellectually, we all know that the comparison game doesn't serve us, right? But we still do it. I know a lot of us find ourselves getting caught in this trap more and more these days, because of social media. You know, you go on Instagram? And what do we immediately do, we immediately start comparing our real life to someone else's filtered life on Instagram. And just a little side note here, because I can go off on a tangent on this. Sometimes, I just want to say this, if what you're looking at on Instagram, or whatever platform you're on, isn't uplifting you and making you feel freaking amazing. If it's making you feel anything less than those things, then you shouldn't be looking at it. Unfollow those accounts, and stop looking at them. Okay, we carry on, anyways.
So we are comparing ourselves to someone else's side story. It robs you of energy and joy. And you obviously don't need me to tell you why comparison is just, it's just so fucked up. And why it's never really going to make you feel better and how it is only ever going to make you feel like shit about yourself. Right? When was the last time that you compared yourself to someone or something, and you actually felt good? Never. We all know this.
So number one, before you go on social media, I think it's really important to kind of reinforce the fact to yourself that what you're about to see is literally not real. It's not, it is the highlight reel, it is a super small piece of what is actually going on in this other person's life. Okay, like I'll never forget, scrolling through one day. And you know, I'm a mom, I have three kids at home. And I remember seeing, like different accounts and different people like posting these like amazing, like adorable, cute, like flower soap baths, or whatever the hell it was. And like their kids were in there. And they were like happy and it just looked like so magical. Or, you know, you see the pictures and there's like seven friggin kids. And every single kid is in the exact same matching outfit. And every single one is staring at the camera, and they're all the most beautiful, perfect smiles and the mom and dad are in there. And it's just as absolutely unbelievable. And I just remember being like, it's just such BS, right? It's like this teeny, tiny little piece, it doesn't mean that they have, it better doesn't mean that their family is better, doesn't mean that they have it any easier. It was literally that one teeny, tiny moment. But I remember like looking at it being like my initial thought was like, Who has the time for this shit for the stupid floral bath, soap bath, whatever the hell it was, like, Who has the time? Like I was thinking, can you imagine how much time it must have taken to get all these people in this one picture of the seven kids with the matching outfits and the husband and the wife of the matching time the matching shirt and the matching dress and everything. It's just so time-consuming.
And so you need to really remember and really set that intention of why you're going on and that when you do go on remember whatever you're looking at is literally just a super teeny highlight reel of their life. Okay, for me when I go on Instagram now I go on specifically to search for business and mindset tips and that is what my focus is. So why do you go on? Because if you aren't conscious about this, then you're gonna find yourself going down the rabbit hole of comparison and it's Like a never ending vicious cycle. And maybe you're someone who finds yourself having little moments of comparison, then again, you may be someone listening right now who was like straight up living every day all day in this comparison mode. Llike maybe your whole world all day, you're constantly living on, you know, she or he's got it all together, they're so lucky, they have it better, they have more money, that kind of mentality. And you're just like living in it could be either or.
And the problem is that if we want to create a lifetime of abundance, and not even just in terms of income, but I'm talking, if we want to create a lifetime of internal happiness, peace, joy, fulfillment, it is impossible to create any of that when we are living in comparison, they can't exist together. Because all this thinking does is just push you into a scarcity mindset. And when you're in a scarcity mindset, you are only going to create more of that, because that's what you're living in. Now, listen, don't beat yourself up. Because we all do this. We're only human, it happens, it happens to me too.
But I remember hearing something from Tony Robbins a long time ago. And he said, “your life and the quality of your life is based on three decisions that you are making every single second of every single day. And if you aren't aware that you are making these decisions, every second of every day, you will float through the world, like jetsam in a current and never be conscious enough to change your mindset. And therefore, never be conscious enough to change the direction so that you are steering yourself the way that you want to go instead of just going along with the current.” And he said that the three decisions that we are making every second of every day, are these three things.
Number one, we are making the decision every single minute of every single day of what are you focusing on. So in this given moment, like right now, what are you focusing on? The second decision that we're making, every second of every day in every single situation is? Okay, what does it mean? So the first one, right, what are we focusing on? Now what does it mean? What have you decided that this thing that you are focusing on means? What is the story you're telling yourself about that? You choose what to focus on, and what it means every second of every single day. That's up to you. And it's a choice. And the third decision that we make is, what are you going to do about it?
So the three decisions that we're making every second of every day – What are we focusing on? What does it mean? So what are we making that mean? And then what are we going to do about it? And the thing is this, when people are in this comparison game, most people, the action that they choose to take is an action that actually makes things worse, it slows you down, it makes you stop or give up on what you're working on. It makes you show up with less energy and less passion, you lose the motivation that you had before you saw that thing that made you start comparing, right? Now because these three decisions kind of stack on top of each other. The only way to shift this is to choose to focus on what you can control. Are you going to focus on what you can control or what you can't?
And oftentimes, what we do is we end up focusing on all the stuff, not realizing that what we're obsessing over are parts that we have no ability to affect or change. And it leaves us just drowning in this sea of overwhelm. And in a place of overwhelm, there's not much that you can do. But if you can focus on what you can control, even doing one little thing right now today is going to help you. This is why everyone always recommends that you make your bed every morning. Because you can control it, it sets a tone for you, and your day to go and accomplish more things as the day goes on. And if worse comes to worse, when you go to lay down at the end of the day, you can say well, you know what, at least I made my bed.
So for example, if you're in business, and you look around to others in your industry, you can look at them and you can think two things, you can look at them and think I'll never be as successful as they are. There's not enough success for me to also be as successful. Or you can look at that as an example, that someone else is doing it someone else is succeeding, which means you can succeed in this as well. And also realize that no one will ever do it the way that you will do it. No one is ever going to do it the way that you're going to do it and that's what will set you apart from everyone else, even if you're in the exact same industry.
And this is all energetic stuff too. When we're talking about this when we're talking about the comparison game and you know, negative thinking thing and it's leading to scarcity thinking, and how can we become a more abundant thinker and create a more abundant life, it's all energy, everything that you do is energy. And I truly believe that what you think about, what you focus on, what you put out there, whether it's negative or not, it comes back to you 100%. I have seen it in action, both ways, positive and negative, it comes back to you.
So once you can become conscious of what you're putting out there, then you need to do something to help yourself actually become better. I mean, or choose not to, and then obviously, life is just going to continue to just suck and everything is going to be hard, and it's never going to get better. And that kind of mentality will take over. And you'll be that kind of person walking around saying, Well, my life is just hard. Everything sucks. Anyways, what's the point, that attitude will get you nowhere, that's what we want to move away from.
So here's some conscious things that you can do to prevent yourself from going down that comparison path. I'm going to give you four conscious things that you can do to prevent yourself from letting that happen and spiral out of control, where you end up feeling sorry for yourself and feeling less than like you're not worthy and deserving of it, and that you aren't capable of really building the life that you want to build.
So number one is, let's just say that you see a friend and you get jealous, alright? Act the way that you would want to feel. So even if it feels forced, even if it feels like fake it till you make it act the way you want to feel. And this is how you start to rewire your brain because honestly, all these things that you're feeling, it's just your wiring, but you can change that wiring, you've just been programmed to think a certain way, but you can be reprogrammed. That's why it drives me nuts when people say oh, you know, this is just who I am, I am who I am. Because it's total bullshit. And it's a major capo, you can rewire your thoughts. So you have different feelings and thoughts. And this will change your energy and energy is everything. And to help you start to rewire those thoughts, make sure that you go to kathireuter.com/thinkthisnotthat you can download my completely free workbook for this, it will give you 19 of the most common limiting negative beliefs that you're thinking on repeat. And it will show you what to replace those limiting thoughts with a more empowering positive thought so that you can start to rewire your mind. So go ahead and get that I'll put that in the show notes for you.
Second conscious thing that you can do to prevent yourself from going down this comparison game is it's time to get to work, like do the work. And I say this because comparison is the best reminder that your head is somewhere else, and you aren't doing the work. Because the person that you're admiring or that you're looking up to or who you're getting jealous of didn't get those things by sitting on Instagram feeling sorry for themselves and comparing themselves to other people. So if you want what they have, then you've got to get to work and you you need to do what needs to be done. So you can have it too. And guess what, only you really know what the work is that you need to do. You know whether it's a personal or professional goal, it doesn't matter, you know it. You know what you need to do. And it's the hard thing. So don't look and have jealousy toward this person, look and use it as a reminder to put your head down and to just get to work. Because that's what's going to get your results.
The third thing is really asking yourself, Okay, what about this specific thing triggered me to feel this way, you know, really just kind of pulling the curtains back and taking a step back and asking yourself that, what set you off here? Because typically, in that small, tiny little seat of jealousy is something that we need to work on within ourselves. You know, what does this person have that I wish that I had to? And really become aware to that?
And then the fourth one is this. Stop measuring yourself against where you want to go and start measuring yourself based on how far you've come. Right? And I fell into this trap too for so long in my first business that I started. I remember being like so frustrated, and I was living in that gap of well, I've been doing this for X amount of years and I should have been so much further along by now. And I literally discounted all the amazing things that I did up until that point because I was so focused on I should be so much further along than I am right now. I should be earning this amount of income I should have this many people on my team and it was all these shoulds on where I should be versus just focusing on but look at how far I've come.
And so, focus on that, start measuring yourself based on how far you've come. Where were you one year ago, where were you three years ago, five years ago, look how far you've come and pay attention to that, you can still think, Geez, you know, I'm really not where I want to be yet. But last year, I didn't even have an Instagram account. And now look at it, look at how far I've come. Alright, so choose to focus on that. And honestly, it doesn't matter how successful you are, comparison still happens, it still happens to everyone, even the people that you look up to every now and then they have slip-ups, right? But they're so aware, they catch it, and they're able to stop themselves and get right back on track and continue to work towards what they want.
And the other reason to why comparison sucks is because when we do it, we think that we need to do it the exact same way that this other person is doing it like we need to copy them. And then when you do that, you just end up being this watered-down version of someone else. And it will never work out for you that way. Because you aren't being you and you're not doing it your way. And that's really the only way that it is going to work out for you is by doing it your way. So again, comparison stops you from being you fully and completely like the real you who you are meant to be. So we've got to get better at this. So we can move into a more abundant life. And so we can fully become the person that we're meant to be while we're here on earth for this short amount of time.
So I hope that you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a friend if you loved it. And thanks so much for being here. You know, I love you and I will see you the next time. Bye.
