When you’ve spent time on social media, or been hanging out with friends, do you come away buoyed up and motivated, or depressed and demotivated by everyone else’s successes?
In this blog I want to help you pause and notice what place comparison plays in your life right now. How it helps, and how it hinders. And how you can make it work for you both to achieve your goals, and feel better in yourself right now. We’ll be talking about weight, eating and body image. But the same things apply to other areas of life, so you can use what’s here more generally.
I’m going to suggest that each of us is in the driving seat of a comparison machine (our brain), and it’s important that we know how to operate the controls. Without that awareness it’s easy to keep crashing.
Why have we evolved to do so much comparing?
The world is, by nature, uncertain and relative rather than fixed and absolute. Our brains evolved to help us navigate this changing landscape.
In a sense, your brain is one big comparison machine. It deals in difference, change and relations between things. When you travel at 30 miles per hour, your brain doesn’t tell you you’re doing 30 mph. But it will tell you if you speed up or slow down – you detect acceleration and deceleration in a way you don’t detect the particular steady state.
One of its key comparison-generators is your brain’s tally of how you are doing in relation to everyone else.
Comparing ourselves with other people
As humans, we are a social, tribal species. Our survival and wellbeing depends on continued membership of our group or tribe.
We are also hierarchical. Like chimpanzees, in any human group there are leaders and followers, and we tend to strive not to be at the bottom of the pecking order.
In the 21st Century western world, one of the metrics that defines our place in the hierarchy concerns how we eat, what we weigh and how we look. Lower weight nudges up our place in the hierarchy, and a similar thing happens when we show restraint around eating.
These rules of the hierarchy developed somewhere along the way and are now lost in the mists of time. The rules are perpetuated by the people who find it easy to follow them, and by the people who make money from us believing them.
Your genes and your appetite hormones determine how you eat, along with your past experience around food and eating. But rather than acknowledge that this means we are not on a level playing field, society pushes the line that if you’re struggling with your weight, it’s your fault. It’s not that simple.
Why do we compare our size, weight and looks so much?
Put simply, we compare ourselves so much because we want to fit in to a social group that prizes slimness. We strive to be accepted, and we try to avoid sliding down the pecking order.
The positives and negatives of comparing ourselves with others
Comparing ourselves with our peers creates a cocktail of pluses and minuses.
On the up-side, comparison plays a part in motivating us in terms of aspiring to something we value. Maybe I want to be more active like my friend Bethany, or I want to be kinder like my cousin Rachel or I want to be more assertive like my colleague Jack.
This may help us towards living the life we want to live.
The downside comes when we focus on our shortcomings, and make comparisons with people we perceive as much better than us. When this turns to self-denigration, it’s demotivating. We’re more likely to give up on our goals because the task feels too much.
Are you comparing yourself in a way that enhances or diminishes your life?
It can help to notice who you are actually comparing yourself with.
Is it
- A friend, colleague or relative?
- Someone you only know superficially, like a social media influencer?
- Your past self or your future self?
Check your mind-set
If your weight or your relationship with food is getting you down, don’t simply assume that what you are thinking and feeling is based on fact.
It will help to shift towards noticing and observing your thoughts and feelings, as this will give you a bit more distance and perspective. In turn, this will give you a handle on what’s happening so you can make changes.
My FIVE tips to free yourself from the ‘not-as-good-as’ mindset
- Move from asking yourself ‘in what ways am I falling short?’ to ‘where am I right now and what small step can I take towards living the life I want?’ In other words, start where you are now and work out the direction you want your life to move in. Then identify the next actionable step you can take.
- Notice who wrote the rules of who you feel you ought to be. Was it someone you admire, or someone that cares about you? Or are you following the rules of a group that isn’t actually your tribe?
- Think about this profound question… Geneen Roth, a wonderfully wise and compassionate voice in the land of self-care, weight and eating, posted a thought recently that blew me away. “If you woke up tomorrow and your ability to compare yourself to anything or anyone disappeared, how would you feel about yourself?” I don’t know about you, but her question stopped me in my tracks.
- This next tip is potentially a tricky one. Let go of unhelpful comparison with people that make you feel rubbish. This might be tricky if you have a particular friend who does this. As a Clinical Psychologist, I’ve worked with many hundreds of people over the years who’ve been struggling with clinical depression. One of the things I have encouraged them to think through, is which people in their social network actually leave them feeling bad. They might not be able to avoid contact with these individuals, but it may help to reduce the amount or the intensity of contact. The same thing applies here – if there is a particular person who leaves you feeling rubbish when you compare yourself to them, can you ration the amount of time you spend with them? Or create an antidote by hanging out with someone who lifts you?
- Check out who you’re following on social media. Unfollow people who make you feel inadequate or not-as-good-as them. And fill your feed with people who make you feel better. Be particularly careful of people who are touting their own lifestyle with the promise that if you follow what they do, you’ll look the way they do. I was interviewed for this recent article in Cosmopolitan by journalist Olivia Krupp where she talks this through.
President Theodore Roosevelt apparently said, “Comparison is the thief of joy”. Interesting that even someone at the top of the tree – assuming that being leader of the USA counts as the top of a tree – said this. My experience of working with people is that however well you do in life, you can still be prone to negatively comparing yourself with others.
Do let me know what you think, in the comments or to info@theappetitedoctor.co.uk.
If you’re looking for help with weight loss
Apply for a free Eating Pattern Analysis call with me, if you feel stuck in relation to weight loss.
Photo by Vinicius Amano for Unsplash