How Can I Stop Comparing Myself

[00:00:00] Why, when you've tried to stop comparing yourself, it hasn't worked, is because you're thinking in tactics and knowledge. You've got to start thinking in terms of skill sets when you are a perfectionist, not thinking about how smart you are or how much you've researched.

[00:00:19] When you do that, you get into this perfectionist entitlement that if I am smart and I know a lot about this, then I should be able to do it without practicing getting it right the very first time. If you are ready to burn bright instead of burning out, to lead without losing yourself, and to enjoy the life you have worked so hard to create, then keep listening.

[00:00:43] I'm your host, America's leader on rewiring perfectionism, CLG, and this is Perfectionism Rewired, the podcast. Welcome to Perfectionism Rewired. Today we are talking about the hidden costs of comparing yourself.

[00:01:01] Why the approach you've taken to stopping self-comparison, why that hasn't worked, what you actually need to do as a perfectionist, because self-comparison for perfectionists is a completely different ballgame than it is for non-perfectionistic people.

[00:01:23] Scientifically, what causes perfectionists to have an even harder time than non-perfectionistic people in rewiring this habit? This episode is part two of three of the miniseries on self-comparison. You are getting all of the key concepts relating to how perfectionists self-compare all in one place.

[00:01:49] In episode one, we covered the sneaky ways that perfectionists tend to self-compare and how it is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to change. It was an awesome episode, so if you haven't listened to it or you've only listened to it once, I definitely recommend you put it into your Up Next and you listen to it. A key takeaway from that episode, self-comparison is a type of punishment.

[00:02:18] When you are comparing yourself, what you're actually doing is punishing yourself. I am illuminating this perfectionistic tendency of comparing yourself because there is so much nuance there. The more uncommon you feel your problem is, the more isolated you feel. Human beings, we are not meant to be isolated.

[00:02:46] We are an interdependent species. When we feel isolated as perfectionists, we make decisions from a place of defensiveness, fear, and inadequacy instead of making decisions from a place of empowerment, openness, and flexibility.

[00:03:08] Considering that 92% of the global population today is impacted by perfectionism, there are lots of perfectionists feeling terrible on the inside while achieving awesomely on the outside. I don't want you to be one of them. When you try to overcome your perfectionistic tendencies, like, oh, I'm going to fight against them and establish a contradictory identity.

[00:03:37] Like someone who cares a lot less about other people, it just forms the walls of a prison. But if you decide to upgrade your perfectionistic tendencies, to leverage them into a strong foundation and to quit fighting against yourself, then you can turn those apparent liabilities, like self-comparison, into the strongest assets of who you are.

[00:04:04] Right now, you can snag a single one-on-one coaching session where you bring me your most annoying perfectionistic tendency, the one that you are so effing tired of getting in your way. I will teach you how to take charge of it. You can secure your session today at CourtneyLoveGavin.com slash rewire. That's CourtneyLoveGavin.com slash rewire. R-E-W-I-R-E.

[00:04:32] Let's get into the hidden costs of comparing yourself. When you compare yourself, you might achieve the superficial benefit of striving for more. You might be achieving that shallow gain, but there is a massive opportunity cost hidden to you. It's literally like taking a wrecking ball to your confidence, your parenting, your adaptability,

[00:04:59] your self-trust, your integrity, your peace, your self-loyalty, resilience, self-esteem, and self-worth. You end up killing your momentum in the long term because when you compare yourself, you're being punitive with yourself. And the grand plan is that you're going to hurt yourself in order to teach yourself a lesson. Maybe you compare yourself, air quotes, for your own good.

[00:05:25] You're using injuring yourself as a strategy for growth, acceleration, and healing. Plus, when you are using self-comparison to achieve more, to continue striving, you're not actually learning how to change. You are learning how to avoid the source of the punishment, which is you. When you are the source of your own punishment, when you're comparing yourself, then you learn to avoid yourself.

[00:05:53] As a perfectionist, you know that you are avoiding yourself when you're constantly thinking about what you need to do next, when you're hyper-fixating on things need to be done in exact way, when you are being overly controlling, overworking, overthinking, shows you don't even like that much, when you're obsessively cleaning, when you are people-pleasing, when you absolutely hate being alone, etc.

[00:06:20] Perfectionistic people often think they are in this cycle of people-pleasing or ruminating about what they texted last Tuesday before they go to sleep. But after digging deeper, using tools inside one-on-one coaching, they see, I've been solving for the wrong problem this whole time. No wonder all the books, podcasts, therapy courses, like no wonder they haven't worked.

[00:06:44] We don't even recognize how dysfunctional this particular flavor of self-punishment is because we live in a culture that promotes retribution as the go-to response for unwanted behavior. Someone says something we don't like, cancel them, dox them, sue them, make them pay.

[00:07:07] It totally makes sense that you have internalized punishment as your go-to for the qualities you don't like seeing in yourself. What totally does not make sense is for you to continue using self-comparison as your choice weapon to promote change. Now that we've covered the hidden costs of comparing yourself, let's get into why when you have tried to stop comparing yourself,

[00:07:37] why it hasn't worked and how you can actually rewire this habit. First one, when you've tried to stop comparing yourself, why it hasn't worked is because you are taking the stop it approach. You are fighting against yourself without solving for the root of the root, which is your brain is continuing to compare yourself because it believes it has good reasons.

[00:08:06] Perhaps your brain believes that is where your drive comes from. If you stop comparing yourself, if you stop punishing yourself, if you actually feel good, then you're just going to be lazy and you're no longer going to strive and you're no longer going to achieve. I talk about this in a podcast on your intrinsic motivational pattern where your brain thinks the fuel you need to be using is foul and without that, your engine won't run.

[00:08:33] When actually you could use fuel that is really fulfilling and nourishing for yourself and your engine will run even better. That episode is linked in the show notes. Also, when it comes to fighting yourself, it can be especially hard when it feels like self-comparison has actually contributed to your success. You can remember critical moments where you're like, I'm getting my ish together right now.

[00:09:01] But truth booth, when you continue to self-compare, you are continuing to not reach your full potential and all of the other hidden costs that we covered at the top of this episode. Number one, when you've tried to stop comparing yourself, why it hasn't worked is you're fighting yourself. You're not uncovering the real reason why. Number two, when you've tried to stop comparing yourself, why it hasn't worked is you are improving

[00:09:30] from a place of inadequacy. You're trying to stop comparing yourself because you believe that comparing yourself is wrong. An adequacy only breeds more inadequacy. It's like multiplying anything by zero. The result is always going to be zero. When you are trying to improve your perfectionistic tendencies, in this case, the perfectionistic tendency of self-comparison, coming from a place of I'm not good enough, this isn't good enough,

[00:09:59] that I'm continuing to do this. Even if you were to actually rewire this perfectionistic tendency, your brain is still trained to see what's not good enough. You will never reach a place where you do feel like you are good enough. You will just continue to stay in this inadequacy self-punishment cycle. So number two, improving from a place of inadequacy.

[00:10:28] Number three, why when you've tried to stop comparing yourself, it hasn't worked is because it wasn't more than intellectual understanding. Hey, I need to stop comparing myself. When you're intellectually understanding, you're like, I should know better than to be doing this. The intellectual understanding isn't enough to actually make changes. Pay attention.

[00:10:55] If you are saying to yourself, I should know better than to be doing this, that could be a sign. You're still at an intellectual level and you're thinking, understanding, hey, this is problematic. Understanding this is causing issues. Understanding this is an unhealthy way to be a perfectionist. You think that that is enough to change it, which we know that it's not.

[00:11:18] Number four reason why when you've tried to stop comparing yourself in the past, it hasn't worked is because you're thinking in tactics and knowledge. You got to start thinking in terms of skill sets when you are a perfectionist, not thinking about how smart you are or how much you've researched.

[00:11:43] When you do that, you get into this perfectionist entitlement that if I am smart and I know a lot about this, then I should be able to do it without practicing and getting it right the very first time. Instead, we want to change your focus to developing skill sets and accepting new skill sets will require effort. The effort doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

[00:12:13] Not everything is supposed to come naturally and effortless. Before I was rewired, I would really stick to only doing things that I was good at. Then when you're developing a new skill and it doesn't come naturally, it can be even more frustrating because you start thinking that there's something wrong with you. But really, all that it's saying is like, hey, you just need to develop some new skills.

[00:12:38] This is where too many perfectionists get stuck, especially perfectionists inside of my coaching practice, perfectionist solutions. These perfectionists have university degrees, MBA, law degree, multiple doctorates. When you are highly educated and have a lot of knowledge, subconsciously, there's this entitlement

[00:13:02] that comes along where if I have knowledge, then I should have this skill and then I should be able to do it correctly. But having the knowledge, having this skill, being able to implement and implement correctly are four entirely different things. A great way for you to see this is if we talk about surfing. Let's say you have read Surfing for Dummies. You've watched a thousand people surf. You've taken notes.

[00:13:30] You listen to a thousand podcasts on surfing. You took an online course on being the best surfer you can be. You went out and you bought all the best gear. And you know what? You moved to Santa Monica. So you have easy access to the best waves on the Pacific Ocean. You have all the knowledge. But do you have this skill? No. Even if you are implementing, we're using air quotes, skills, you've learned from all of this knowledge.

[00:13:57] You're going to be looking at the wrong part of the wave for this particular beach and its wave patterns. Or you're going to be working your arms way harder than they need to be worked because you're not shifting them by three degrees. Even if you're implementing, you're not implementing correctly and you're not actually gaining any useful skills for yourself. Now that we know why when you've tried to stop comparing yourself, why that hasn't worked, let's talk about what you actually need to do.

[00:14:26] Before we get into any of the tools, I need you to drag to trash and permanently delete the idea that comparing yourself is completely wrong. In order to rewire the perfectionistic tendency of self-comparison, you've got to allow yourself to compare without judgment. No one else is talking about this specifically to perfectionistic tendencies.

[00:14:51] When we make ourselves wrong for self-comparison or we get frustrated with ourselves for continually comparing ourselves to other people, we are actually making it harder to rewire this habit. You are putting your energy into what you don't want to be doing and you are continuing to fight against yourself. What you actually need to do is let go of the judgment around comparing yourself, dissolve

[00:15:21] the frustration, and remember your brain believes it's doing you a solid right now. It's associating comparing yourself with safety. Your brain is thinking, if I compare myself, I will improve and then I won't be criticized, I won't be judged, I won't be abandoned, and I won't feel inadequate. It makes so much sense that your perfectionistic brain is comparing yourself right now.

[00:15:51] You've got to acknowledge that without making yourself wrong for it. As a perfectionist, it's never useful to take the approach of making yourself wrong. Yes, this sounds counterintuitive. You're like, wait, CLG, I want to change this self-comparison pattern and you're saying in order to change it, I need to not judge it and allow it to happen? Yes. I need you to accept it.

[00:16:18] Accept it means you let it happen and you're not judging it. Acceptance is not agreement. It doesn't mean that you're agreeing with it. It doesn't mean that if you accept it and you won't judge it, that you're always going to be using the perfectionistic tendency of self-comparison as a weapon instead of a tool. No, no, no. It doesn't mean that. It means if you want to change it, you need to accept it. Acceptance can sound very out there.

[00:16:47] So I'm being annoyingly specific. Acceptance in this case means you're not going to judge it and you're going to allow it to happen. This first step or maybe even pre-step to rewiring comparing yourself is the hardest one. Inside of Perfectionism Optimized, I give you tools to make this less terrifying and broaden your horizon of control.

[00:17:14] Now that we know the hidden costs of comparing ourselves, why when we've tried to stop comparing ourselves in the past, it hasn't worked? And what we actually need to do to start rewiring this, let's get into what makes it harder for us perfectionists to rewire comparing ourselves than pedestrian, non-perfectionistic people.

[00:17:39] I'm going to preface this with this is not a permission slip to go into victim vibes or to be like, oh, now I get why it's so hard for me. None of that. Wanted to say that because as I was outlining this episode, I was like, oh my gosh, episode one of the miniseries, I'm like, it's not your fault. And then in this episode, I'm like, this is why it's harder. So just know. Okay. Scientifically, what makes a perfectionist a perfectionist is someone who constantly notices

[00:18:08] the gap between reality and an ideal. Being able to see those two and have this desire to not only bridge the gap, but to have the Ferrari drive to actually turn it into reality. Perfectionistic brains have advanced cognitive power to process the unfolding of these alternate

[00:18:35] realities of these visions of where we see things can be improved. That power is called counterfactual thinking. This ability of counterfactual thinking is extraordinarily unique. It's something that only human beings can do. Like we might not be able to regrow our own tails, but we can see different realities than what's there.

[00:18:58] Human brains have the capacity to see reality, but also imagine a different reality at the same time. As perfectionists, we are super skilled in this. We have an advanced ability in this area where you mentally compare your current actions or outcomes to an expected or desired hypothetical version of you that deviates from reality, but

[00:19:26] deviates from who you are right now, what has already occurred in the past, and what the future might hold. All of that is deviating from reality. What this can look like, IRL, is you dwell on a presentation that you gave. You are like replaying it for several days, going over every small area that you could have done better and imagining how you could have made it flawless.

[00:19:55] Oh, if I only would have done that, then this. What that results in is unhealthy self-comparison and feelings of inadequacy due to these perceived shortcomings that you're looking at, due to all the things that you didn't do good enough. Now, researchers examined counterfactual thinking in the 1992 Summer Olympics. They looked specifically at silver and bronze medalists, like people who got silver and bronze medals.

[00:20:25] They discovered if you get a silver medal, you tend to feel worse than if you get a bronze medal because the most common counterfactual thought after winning silver is, I could have won gold. Why didn't I win gold? If I would have done this, I could have gotten gold. Where the most common counterfactual thought after winning bronzes, I could have not placed.

[00:20:54] What researchers found from that study at the 1992 Summer Olympics was, I mean, they found a lot, but a major insight they got from it was imagining what could have been can lead those who do better to feel worse than those they outperform. The silver medalists, when they think counterfactually, they actually feel worse than when the bronze

[00:21:22] medalists look at things counterfactually. Counterfactual thinking ain't all bad. It's what you do next after the counterfactual thinking called your reflexive counterfactual thought in clinical terms. That is what is going to point you in the direction of either learning, growing, thriving, or it's

[00:21:49] going to put you into this cycle of punishment, unhealthy self-comparison, and shrinking yourself instead of expanding. In the next episode, we are digging into, like, if you're going to self-compare, here's the best way to do it. Yes, there are purposeful, empowering ways for comparing ourselves. The problem is most of us have grown up comparing ourselves and making sure our self-comparison

[00:22:15] is the absolute worst apocalyptic, dystopian, horrific story we can tell about ourselves. I'm going to give you access to a tool that is going to help you instantly upgrade the way that you are comparing yourself. That's what's coming up in the next episode. Take care. Bye. Listen up. Taking charge of your perfectionism is so much easier than you have been led to believe.

[00:22:41] Whether you want to stop playing out worst-case scenarios in your head or be joyfully present and ambitious again, you don't need more rigid rules, guesswork, or hard work in perfectionism recovery. You need a framework that helps you understand and, most importantly, rewire your perfectionistic habits from the inside out. It starts inside of perfectionism-optimized.

[00:23:06] Besides the obvious mental health and wellness benefits, rewiring your perfectionism is the fastest way to figure out what's really underneath your perfectionistic patterns. This radically different, proven, proprietary approach helps you succeed by dropping the contempt and judgment that blocks change. Discover how to trust yourself, take control of your world, and feel truly empowered to own

[00:23:34] your perfectionism instead of being owned by it. Head on over to CourtneyLoveGavin.com and start your transformation today.