0:00:00 - Michelle Pualani
So when I was growing up, especially through high school, I used to feel jealous of the quote-unquote pretty girls. I often compared myself to them. I have really big curly hair. They were blonde, straight brown hair and I just felt like I didn't fit in with them and that really caused this sense of comparison syndrome that came up and I didn't discover until later on.
0:00:24 - Joanna Newton
Welcome to Her. First, I'm Joanna. Her First is a podcast to help online business owners, coaches and creators gain the confidence needed to build a successful business while creating sustainable lifestyle balance. We are here to help you prioritize yourself in your business and life. In this episode, Michelle and I dive into the widespread issue of comparison syndrome, discussing the psychological roots and impact on mental well-being. We'll share practical strategies for ending constant comparison and nurturing self-compassion instead, especially in the online space. So, Michelle, let's kick it off. What is comparison syndrome?
0:01:04 - Michelle Pualani
So, speaking to how I felt when I was younger is I had this sense of comparison. My family didn't have as much money as these other girls. I didn't look like these other girls. My hair is big, it's curly, I'm different, I'm built differently and I think we all do this in some way, even I found out later, even the quote-unquote pretty girls. We all have a sense of comparison in the way that we think about ourselves in relationship to the world and relationship to other people.
So, as this has evolved into my business and into the online space, comparison syndrome is often referred to as comparisonitis. It's a psychological phenomenon characterized by the habitual tendency to compare oneself to others. So this is particularly in the terms of achievements, physical appearance, success and how it's demonstrated, or even social status. So when we kind of have that constant comparative mindset, it can really lead to feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem and sometimes even heightened anxiety. And it's characterized by measuring your worth based on external benchmarks. So it's not about what's inside, it's about what's being demonstrated on the outside, and that's really where the comparison comes from, which can undermine your self-worth, really affect your overall happiness and you feel a certain sense of I'm not good enough, I'm not performing well enough, I don't look a certain way, and comparison syndrome can show up a little bit differently for all of us, but ultimately it has these underlying roots of what's on the outside compared to somebody else's outside, and that can be in the home. It can be with your material things, it can be in your business, which we'll talk a lot about today, in terms of financial success, how you compare to someone on social media and when you really think of those vanity metrics so likes, follows, shares, engagement how someone's appearing in terms of fame or celebrity status in the online space, or even when you think of those smaller businesses oh, they had this amazing launch, they have this many clients or this many members in their program, they've done this much successful work, they've been in the industry for so long and it can really undermine our efforts and it can undermine our own success. So it creates a sense of sabotage in the life that we're leading and the business that we're trying to build.
So comparison syndrome is really, really important to consider if it's showing up for you in different ways and how you can start to reduce some of those feelings of comparison so that you can actually show up in your own success and acknowledge your own achievements and really feel like you are living your purpose and your passion without feeling like you have to compare and contrast to someone else's external presentation of things.
So I'm really excited to dive into some of these strategies today with you, joanna, and how a business owner, as a content creator, you can start to think a little bit differently about comparison syndrome, you can really understand it a little bit better and you can start to think about the actions that you can take in hopes to not just avoid it or overcome it, but to demonstrate your own ability and success in the online space and own that, as opposed to shying away from it. So we want to talk a little bit about the psychological factors that really contribute to feeling this way. Understanding what comparison syndrome is and how it shows up in your life is one thing, but, joanna, can you take us through some of the psychological factors that really contribute to comparison syndrome and how we can start to kind of watch out for it?
0:04:51 - Joanna Newton
I guess definitely. I think one thing that's really interesting when we think about our actions and how our mind works right, is that it all goes back to a lot of things that happened in our childhood. We're taught from a very early age how to relate to others, how to relate ourselves to others. What that means you know from birth. So there's some very, very deep-rooted things that come along with comparison syndrome. You know. If, as a child, your parent was often comparing you to your other siblings or children from another family or anything like that, that's going to affect you in adulthood. So I think something that's really important for people to do if you want to be successful, if you want to own a business, if you want to have a dream life where you feel fulfilled and stable and all of those things, understanding the things that happen to you as a young person is very important, and that doesn't just mean major trauma, right, like I think. Sometimes we think, oh, I had a decent childhood, it wasn't super traumatic, I don't have something to think about. One thing that I think is a good idea for anybody to do is to read books about psychotherapy, understand some of the inner workings of children and child development and if you feel you need to seek out therapy in a way, that's going to help you unpack some of these things for you, for me, when I became a parent and I started thinking about parenting and the actions that I do and how it affects my child you know the way I discipline, the way I set boundaries, the way I do certain things it actually made me understand a lot about my past and how I became who I am and the good and the bad, and I think for me, there was a lot that happened to me in my childhood that really had me looking for external validation. Doing good wasn't good enough, it had to be noticed and it had to be praised. But that also meant the opposite was true. When a mistake was noticed, it really affected me as a person and, honestly, it wasn't until I started to understand this about myself and start to move past it that I really felt some stability and control and true joy out of my life, because I had to stop constantly comparing myself to other people, and I know now that that was rooted in a lot of how I grew up and being taught to compare myself to others and to always look well. This person's doing that, this person's doing that, why aren't you there? Why aren't you doing that? And not in any sort of mean. Growing up it wasn't any sort of mean-hearted way, but just baked into just my life and so being able to think about that and where that comes from, that's so important.
And for me I think it was a lot of looking for external validation. But for others, just based on your childhood experience, how you grew up, that could be looking for things like perfectionism. If you always, always striving to be perfect, I might have a little of that too. Also thinking about just cultural and societal pressures, your family system, where they come from, what they believed, fitting into specific roles and what that role means. You might have experience with envy or jealousy or just negative self-talk. This is never going to work out for me having those thoughts. So a lot of these you know, the symptoms of comparison syndrome have a root and I think it's important to think down to what that root is and understand it so that way you can move past it and you can stop comparing yourself to others and you can experience that joy.
And I know for myself there have been times in my life when I wasn't doing as well personally or professionally. And I would look at people on social media who were talking about their new business or their new venture or showing themselves traveling, and I would look at them and be like they're not that great. Why are they promoting themselves Right, like I'd have that, like they're not better than me. Why are they doing that? And and I kind of hated that I would have those feelings and I didn't like it. And when I stopped seeking that external validation, I started just cheering for other people, you know, and like being like good for that person. That's amazing. Look at them. Go, because I was happy with myself without that need for external validation. So obviously there's a lot of psychological factors going on here. A lot of societies, pressures, experience, trauma that leads us to be people who compare. But I wanna know what kind of toll that takes on our wellbeing if we're stuck in comparison syndrome.
0:10:16 - Michelle Pualani
The idea that we'll talk about when we get to practices and actionable strategies that you can actually take in order to manage this. But it's not so much about what you can change in the external world right, it's not about controlling what someone is posting on social media. It's not about controlling what someone else is doing in order to impact how you compare. It's about the strategies and actions that you can take and realizing you have that ownership. Just like you mentioned, joanna, is when you realized that you stopped looking for that external validation. That's when things started to change for you. So we're gonna talk about how you can personally own that and how you can be responsible for that. So, responding to this question of wellbeing, what's the impact on our overall wellbeing? And I wanna talk a little bit about mental health so that you realize that comparison syndrome is something that affects us all on a day-to-day basis and can really have a negative impact on our lives if we don't get it under control. We talked about what comparison syndrome is. We've talked about why comparison syndrome often shows up in our lives and sharing the childhood roots. Thank you so much, joanna, because it is so important to look back on the things that we've been through and why we are the way that we are today, and we can uncover so much from that and then be able to do something about it, especially again as a personal brand. So some of the things that start to show up with comparison syndrome can be and look like increased anxiety. So worrying about not measuring up or meeting perceived standards can show up in your business and you're in your life, maybe some feelings of depression because you're feeling a little inadequate and this can make you feel senses of hopelessness, which I know for a fact that I've felt in the past as a result of this, having a decreased sense of self-worth. Maybe you feel like you're not good enough and you're doing that in comparison to others which, if you think about it, can really impact you. Am I good enough to take on this client? Am I good enough to get in front of the camera? Am I good enough to be able to serve my members of my community? Am I good enough to make this sale?
When you start to question those things, you'll realize how it shows up in your day-to-day life and whether you're seeing success in your business, success in your sales, success in your reach, in your audience growth. You may feel a certain lowered self-esteem when you which you doubt your abilities and possibly your value. It may show up in your life like I felt massively before, as you can learn about in one of our other episodes about self-care. Is stress and burn so really negatively impacting your overall well-being by feeling like you're not doing enough, which then leads to over-commitment, which then leads to overextension, which then leads to oh I have to do everything and make sure everything is perfect and do everything for everybody else before I actually serve myself. It feeds into that.
Are you prioritizing yourself in your business and your life? It can impact your relationships, whether that is with your clients or with your partner or with your family or with even friends. You may be projecting some of your insecurities onto them and where this may show up in your business, if you are insecure about finances, you may not be able to ask for the sale in your sales calls. So if you feel like you're not closing at the conversion rate that you want on your sales calls, this sense of comparison leading to insecurity and doubt may be actually feeding. In addition, you might feel kind of a general overall dissatisfaction with life and happiness because you're scrolling on social media, seeing that person take that travel and vacation trip and, because of this comparison syndrome, you're feeling like, oh well, I'm not on vacation right now, oh well, I'm not in that place in my life. And it makes you look around at your surroundings and your environment on a day-to-day basis and feel like it's less than, it's not as good as, and it can really bring you down.
And then, lastly, really having a sense of impaired decision-making.
So we make decisions every single day, especially as business owners.
We are sitting in the leadership role, we are the ones driving the ship, and when our decisions are based on other people's expectations, when they're based on external validation, when they're based on this insecurity, this doubt, this sense of fear of rejection, then we're not living the fullest potential that we possibly can be in our life and in our business.
What we need to do instead is reflect, take a step back, look internally and we'll share this in the practical strategies being able to make decisions that are based on your internal compass as opposed to that external validation, that external navigation. So, knowing that those are the impacts on your mental health and knowing that this is how it shows up in your wellbeing and your day-to-day business choices. It's really important to consider how comparison syndrome might be affecting you and how it might be inhibiting you, and one of the places that that shows up the most is social media. So we're gonna talk a little bit about social media and how we can actually start to think about social media differently and how we can do things differently with our social media presence, because, let's be real, social media is not going away. If we're building a brand, if we're building a business, we have to use social media.
0:15:28 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and social media is so powerful. It can be really amazing for your business. It can be a great place to learn, to connect with others, create community. There's so many positive things about social media, but there's also some toxic things about it, and I think involving and engaging with social media is what you make of it, and one of the things that is an issue with social media is the highlight reel effect. For the most part, people are showcasing their best moments on social. They're showing their achievements, their experiences, even if they're a lifestyle vlogger and they're just like look at this restaurant, look at this new outfit I got they're not going to show themselves eating a bag of potato chips in a ripped sweatshirt, right. They're gonna show the best things the Lululemon, the green smoothie right. They're gonna show those highlights. And so I think it's really important when you're watching social media, to recognize that people are showing their highlights. Likely, if you only showed your highlights on social media, you would look just as amazing and fabulous as them, and then, if so, if you're looking at their highlights, thinking of your lowlights, that's gonna be a problem for you. You're gonna be thinking why am I not doing that? And all of that I also think with that highlight real approach some of it too. If you're stuck in this these people have all these amazing highlights, I don't you can't honestly take a step back and instead of saying why don't I have what they have, think what's keeping me from creating a life? If I want my life to look like that, what is keeping me from doing that myself? Why don't I go on vacations? Why don't I exercise? Why don't I? Maybe it is a budgeting issue or a financial issue there's a lot of things I could go on but take a step back and think, okay, I'm jealous of that person's life. Instead of being jealous, I'm going to take some energy to think how can I create a life that has space for those things, and that's a very different way of thinking about that.
The other thing is just thinking about different comparison triggers. I think for people, those triggers are different things based on what you want and your desire there. So if you're constantly exposed to these idealized images and lifestyles, it can trigger that unhealthy comparison. For you and for different people that might be different things. If your house is a little messy and it just is because you have a six-year-old not talking to anyone but myself here and you're constantly looking at these perfectly curated homes with white carpets and all of these things that are completely unrealistic for a mom of a six-year-old to have. That could just be an unhealthy comparison to have in my life. It's not possible unless I had a full-time maid cleaning up after us all of the time, and so sometimes you have those comparison triggers that you have in your life and that might be something you need to cut out.
Another thing with social media that comes is the sphere of missing out. If you're not doing something, going to something, then you're going to feel a little bit jealous of the people who do get to experience those things and wish that you had the opportunities that they had, wish that you got to go on that trip, go to that concert, do that thing. But here's another place to step back Instead of being jealous of those things, think about what can I do to have those things in my life. Another real thing and I think this is a really hard thing psychologically and being the mother of a daughter something I think a lot about is filtering and editing of photos. You can make yourself look like a completely different person, a person that is not realistic to be, and it's really easy to do that on social media with filters even, just like the slight blurring effects you know, taking away wrinkles or changing hair color, changing eye color.
I too, michelle, was a young girl with big, curly hair that always felt like, why don't I have the straight hair? Growing up in the 90s, the stick thin, like no curves look, was in and I was a never stick thin and I've always had some curves going on, not always right, but like probably since I was 13, and I always looked at that blonde, blue-eyed, thin girl who had a thigh gap and could wear low rise jeans without anything sticking up at the wrong place and it was really hard for me in real life, but there was no filter. There were no filters then. Right Now you can fake that and you can create really unrealistic images that nobody can compare to and that can be really hard and damaging psychologically. I don't know if you've seen there's been some TikToks lately that I've been getting showing like there's a time I think it was in the early 2000s when certain pop stars were criticized for getting fat, so there are oh my gosh, no.
Yeah, so this was in the early 2000s. There and I remember this happening as a child there were performances from like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson and it was, I think it was around the same time and people were like, oh, they're getting fat, like this was in the early 2000s. What is absolutely insane? First of all, inappropriate regardless. But people are pulling up these videos that were the videos of when they were criticized for being overweight and like they're not. Like I'm looking at them and I'm like these girls are not by any standard, overweight, so not only should they have not been criticized in the first place, it's also that what I was, what was being told was fat, to us was like completely healthy.
0:21:46 - Michelle Pualani
Yeah, and you know what you're talking about with appearances.
So my world and I spent so much time in this and the science and data shows that the more distorted reality of images that we're shown, the more psychologically we are impacted.
Especially when it comes to young girls and seeing edited photo, edited in Adobe Photoshop, ads in magazines, of extended, next thinned, faces, adjusted hips and waist and body, you know like there's nothing wrong with being blonde hair, blue eyed and thin.
There's nothing wrong with that in any way. But adjusting the perception of reality in the online space and in the digital space in ads and advertising, completely psychologically impacts us, and it's not to say that we have to try to change it Again. We can if we sit in that position, but it's more about how we're responding to those things. So that is just such a tough thing to hear is that we're shaming people based on their body structure and oh, this happened so much to women in this world that we live in, especially at the celebrity level. I could even imagine being so famous and having that feedback constantly about our physical appearance and what that means to us. But again, learning from an understanding that we still experience this the images that we see on social media affect us emotionally and psychologically in this way. Even without us realizing it, we are feeling that comparison syndrome.
0:23:20 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and you're exactly right. There's nothing wrong with being thin or having straight hair or blonde hair. That's not the problem. The problem is setting a one kind of dimensional standard of beauty that we all have to fit in instead of embracing our own authenticity of what we look like.
I'm sure you experienced this with curly hair, but like there was so much in me that like wanted straight hair but like I'm not a morning person, so I never woke up and straighten my hair every morning because that was too much work.
So when I was like in fourth grade, I did the most ridiculous thing I would get out of the shower with my wet hair and like put it in a bun until it dried and then take it down so it would be straight. Now it looked horrible. I'm sure I have no pictures. I'm sure it looked horrible because it was in a bun, so like the bottom was probably curly and the top was probably straight. So it's probably looked horrible, but that's what I did, because I was like I got to try to figure out how to make my hair straight, but I'm not going to wake up early and straighten it. But yeah, you have that comparison and you think I'm only going to be happy if versus how, can I be happy now? So I'd love to talk about where some of this comes from, like, where does this come from and then how does it impact us as business owners and with the choices that we make?
0:24:45 - Michelle Pualani
What we were just discussing. When it comes to kind of that celebrity stature, when we're thinking about large ads, billboards, magazines, television, movies, everything that we're seeing in social media these days, because obviously everything is transformed into paid advertising in YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, of course, like, if you knew how much money gets pumped into advertising, it's nuts. Marketing is where everything lives and we're essentially dictating and controlling the way we show up in the world with advertising, because it's a projection of what we want. Like, if you think about marketing and what it does, it's supposed to project this image, this identity, this status, this sense of self that they're selling to you, that they want you to buy into, and so, of course, it's going to be something that is either fantastical or above and beyond what you have right now. It's speaking to kind of your innermost desires, of what it would be to reach that goal physically, when it comes to appearance, or materialistically in the world. So we have these idealized beauty standards that have been created around us and when it comes to your business, we have to think about how, when we're creating a personal brand, we are completely and totally opening up ourselves to the vulnerability of being physically judged right, like this podcast, is recorded via video. We share social media content that is video. Now, of course, you have LinkedIn, you have Twitter, like there are just written places in which you can show up as well, and there are plenty of brands that show up that way, but in some way, we're usually putting ourselves in front of people to be criticized, and so much of that happens, especially with TikTok these days, and so we have to start to protect ourselves from what that means. We have to start thinking about how we can mentally equip ourselves to handle that criticism and how we deal with that. Right, joanna, you were just talking about these celebrities who are being judged when they were performing. They have to go through some kind of mental training in some way to prepare themselves for the criticism of the stage that they're taking, of the presence that they're having.
Would it be great if we could change it and not have it in the first place? Yes, absolutely, but that's not the reality with what we're dealing with. So we have to realize that there are these idealized beauty standards that are created, and how is that gonna be reflected in how we show up as business owners and as brands? Are we gonna feed into them? Are we going to edit, curate in the way that we wanna match those idealized beauty standards? It's not a bad thing if you do. I wanna make that clear. We're not judging the ability to do that as long as, again, it's coming from a healthy place. Like I was just hearing about a business owner who talks about the revenge body revenge on your ex body by getting so fit and in shape that you can show up in front of your ex and just look smoke and hot. That's not a bad thing. Like still creating that kind of solution. It's still creating that future you or identity in which people are gonna buy into. That's okay to do as a business and brand. How far are you willing to tip that into unrealistic is gonna be up to you to judge and then also identifying the ways in which you're showing up and how that's gonna be judged, and being either okay or again putting those blocks in place.
Next would be success benchmarks. So when we're thinking of the external world, others are often sharing their successes, sometimes very loudly, and that's a good thing. We want to celebrate in them, right? Joanna mentioned if someone's going on vacation, if someone did a big launch, if someone's reached a certain level of followers. We wanna look to those things and say, oh, I can do that too, I can be as successful as that, which is great. But we have to start thinking about how you can regulate your own success benchmarks, not compared to other people. What does it mean for you to feel successful and how does that show up in your business and in your life? As opposed to saying, oh well, I'm not at six figures yet. Oh, I'm not at seven figures yet. Oh, I didn't have this kind of launch, or I didn't make hundreds of thousands of dollars, or I don't have that many followers. That's not going to get you very far, unless you're a highly competitive person and you're just looking to beat other people A whole, totally separate issue but for most of us, it's gonna create negative self-talk, it's gonna create the insecurity, it's gonna create the doubt and that's just gonna take you in a downward spiral. So how can you set your own success benchmarks that aren't compared to other people? And then thinking about that is thinking of the social media pressure that comes along with that.
Joanna just talked about the highlight reel, realizing that there's a lot going on behind the scenes. You cannot judge where you are, or make decisions based on what you're seeing in the online space, which is so, so, so important. You do not know how many hours went into it. Everyone says, oh, yeah, you have the super simple, really easy way to accomplish this goal. Nope, not true. Like it's not there. I've paid for it, I've looked for it, I've tried it. Trust me, I've learned from other people who have done the same thing. But really what happens is they're like oh, I figured this really awesome thing out. It's super simple, it's super easy. Come check it out. And then they get you to buy into that. And then it's like oh, but there's all this, actually all these other pieces that go along with the puzzle as well.
So just realizing that the success that you're seeing online, that highlight reel, has so much more depth to it, and that's okay. It's gonna be the same thing for you. So you do not judge yourself based on what you're seeing from that social media pressure. And then, of course, there's that family and peer expectations. So your circle is really gonna determine how you take action. What people are doing around you is going to feed into your daily choices and being really mindful of who you surround yourself with. So those family members, those peers, those if you have, coworkers, still those business partners, whoever it is they are going to play into that comparison syndrome in yourself and it'll show up in your business. And it'll show up in your life, identifying those things that people are saying around you and realizing that that language matters and being more conscious, more aware of it and then choosing those people in your life who will help, hopefully, support you in whatever it is that you're working on and where you're heading in all this Because, really, the way that you talk to yourself, the way that you show up in your life, is going to have a huge effect on your day-to-day choices in your business. It affects how you show up, it affects what you invest in and really how you build your future.
For the rest of this time, joanna, I wanna take us through some tips, actions, strategies. So we both have a couple of things that we're gonna share with you as a listener, to be able to actually take what we're talking about today and put it into the real world. Again, it's important to know what comparison syndrome is. It's important to know what contributes to comparison syndrome. It's important to understand how it shows up in the world, but what can you actually do about that? So, joanna, kick us off with our first strategy.
0:32:10 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, I think it's really important to, when you realize there's a problem, think about easy, actionable steps you can take to change that. And, michelle, you were talking about your family, the people around you, how they affect your mindset. What you consume also affects your mindset and a lot of that happens through social media and the content that you're watching, listening to, seeing, and so what you're scrolling through every day really has an effect on who you are on the inside and how you react to things. And I think sometimes, when you think about social media exposure, we just think about those idealized images. But I want to talk about friends and family for a second, because you brought this up. You know likely you're following friends and family on social media in their daily life and these might be people you've known forever.
And I think that can be hard for two reasons. One, if they don't have the same kind of mindset as you to grow, to change, to learn, that can be really hard when you're seeing their limiting beliefs or their negative self-talk, those things. If you're seeing that all the time, that can affect you. The other thing, too, that that can do is if you're trying to show up for your business, their criticism of you can affect your ability to make content. So if you're thinking, okay, I'm gonna post this and someone is going to think X, y or Z about it, it can make you insecure to post that.
At one point I started TikTok and didn't tell anybody because I just wanted to be able to talk and create and not think about what my friends, family, coworkers might think about that content. Now I don't care anymore. Like now. I'm like, if you don't like it, deal with it. But there was a time where I had to separate from them being able to see my content also. So when you're thinking about social media, I think you need to be able to find ways to be super mindful about that. So that can be through setting boundaries. You know, not following your friends and family on every channel, not following certain celebrities or creators that trigger your comparison syndrome.
Thinking about that is really important, but essentially setting time limits, like if you're a kind of person who's gonna scroll and scroll and scroll. That can be hard, and it's especially hard for online creators, because we do need to know what's going on. Like we do need to know the trends, the topics, the changes in style of content. The algorithm changes, like there is a studying aspect for us that is important, but it does need to be limited so we don't fall into that comparison, and I think that limit for everybody is very different.
You also can think about curating your feed, who you're following, the type of content you're engaged in, you're reading, you're watching is really important and, again, this is gonna be different for everybody. But following things that motivate you and don't give you that comparison syndrome or bring you down in any way is really important and just overall, practicing mindful consumption. We see so much all of the time and you might say it doesn't affect me, it doesn't do this or that or the other thing, but it likely does. So, being mindful of the effect that those things have on you, I think it's really important.
0:36:07 - Michelle Pualani
Understanding that subconscious awareness that's always happening and always running as you're consuming, and you bring up such a great point about friends and family and them being in a different place in their lives, having a different mindset, and they may be well-intentioned with what they say, but it doesn't always apply to you and we have to be able to distinguish what's meant for us and what isn't. You know, it's not to say that what they're offering doesn't have validity. It's not to say what they're trying to give you feedback about isn't important. It might just not be applicable to you and where you're at and I've seen a lot of this online and I don't necessarily agree with the exact sentiment, but essentially people are.
You know, staging is like, if you're not where I want to be, then your feedback and criticism doesn't matter. And on one hand, I'm like, yeah, you're totally right. Like the criticism, it doesn't make sense at all. If you don't have the business that I want, if you don't have the life that I want, there's really no advice that you're gonna give me that I feel like is gonna be appropriate for me. On the other hand, I do really believe that everyone has something important to offer. So even if someone isn't at the level that you are looking to be, become or grow to, it doesn't. Again, it doesn't mean that what they're saying or what they're contributing isn't valid, isn't somehow helpful, because sometimes that advice or the awareness or that aha moment can come from the most unlikely places.
0:37:37 - Joanna Newton
If you get feedback, I'm with you and people say, well, if you're not where I am, I'm just gonna ignore your advice. I think that's a little extreme. But if someone gives you feedback, take it, think about it, reflect on it if it applies to you or not, and make that decision and move in whatever direction you need. But don't always take it at face value. It's a very different way to think about it.
0:38:01 - Michelle Pualani
Yeah, and having that discernment, I think, is super important for us again, because there's gonna be so much coming at us all the time. We get feedback in so many ways. We didn't like that. You don't know what you're talking about. However, it's coming to you, whether that's comments or emails, or friends and family members say hey, you should start a YouTube channel. Okay, great thanks, that's great advice. But really, ultimately, it's discovering what in that is meant for you and how it's gonna apply to you.
So that leads really nicely into our next strategy, which is practicing mindfulness and self-awareness. Really taking everything that we've talked about today and reflecting, taking moments of pause, taking moments instead of being reactive, to be active in your life, identifying the triggers and thought patterns that come up when you consume a certain piece of content, really being aware of when it's happening around you, how it's showing up in your business and how it's showing up in your life, and being able to identify oh, this is something that bothers me, this is something that makes me feel like I'm missing out. This is something that makes me question the shape of my body or how I'm showing up on video. So, really starting with the awareness and the mindfulness piece of identifying when this comparison syndrome, when these feelings are even arising for you, and then with that, you've got to cultivate self-compassion. So self-compassion is really acceptance of who you are in this very moment physically, mentally, emotionally.
That's what I believe self-compassion to be, and it's not self-care, it's not the practices, it's not the activities that you do as a result of self-compassion, but it's really how you see yourself in this very moment and whether you can accept yourself without shame, without embarrassment, without judgment, free from any comparison. That that self-compassion takes place is how is that showing up in your life and how can you cultivate that self-compassion in order to make different choices as a result of that? And then really focusing on your own personal growth and the values that you have. So again, so much of what we talked about today is external and there is external pressure coming from education, society, religion, online industry, family, friends, other business partners and things like that. So really starting to think about in that mindfulness and awareness piece is what is it that you are focusing on? What is your personal growth story, what are your values and how is that being reflected and how is that showing up in your life and how can you choose to stay on that path without getting pulled from it.
0:40:45 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and that's exactly what her first is about, right, like really looking at what it is that you want for yourself. And I think, when you're truly seeking that for yourself, what you want, not thinking what does my family want, what do my friends want, what do people that I'm trying to grow social media for my business, what do they want, like, what is it that I want and what is it that I want to be? And I think when you figure that out, when you're going after that, that really helps you with our next sort of strategy, which is promoting authenticity. Right, you can't be authentic if you're not already doing that. You can't be authentic if you're not going after your own personal growth, your own values. So showing up authentically can really help Break comparison syndrome by just being yourself, share your real, honest story, focus on your values, your passions and actually engage authentically with people. And I think for me, how this shows up in my life a little bit is there's been a part of me that I was always wanted to like look perfectly put together and all of those things. But that's not realistic. All of the time you can't really see because, well, one, you might just be listening to this, but if you're watching this you can't really see because of the way these headphones are.
I have a decent amount of gray hair. I do like to get it colored because I like to, but when it's close to color time, which is this week I'm going on Friday to get my hair done you can see a lot of gray, and I made a video one day this was a while ago for TikTok and I literally had this gray hair sticking straight up in the video and I thought I almost didn't post it because I was like that's bad, no one wants to see my gray hair. And then I was like who cares? If someone doesn't want to follow me because I have a gray hair, then I don't want them following me. Like then, is that someone I really want in my community? Is that someone I want to be involved with? Oh well, there's a gray hair.
I also get like sometimes, like when I'm really excited or maybe a little nervous or emotional in any way, I'll like get a little rashy on my chest. Like it just happens. I don't have a lot of control over it. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm anxious or having like an issue Like I could just be super passionate about it and get something, get read sometimes. Sometimes I'll film a video and I'll be a little rashy and I'll be like, do I post this? And I'm like, yes, I'm just gonna post it because this is who I am. You know, this is authentically who I am.
You know thinking about when you're making content, having some filler words or pronouncing something wrong, it's really not the end of the world and some of those little differences actually make people comfortable, wanting to engage with you because they're thinking this is actually a real person on the other side of this camera. I can relate to that. I get read too when I do this and actually there was a story with you know it wasn't a story. No one ever talked about this Elise Myers, who we've talked about already on a previous episode of this podcast.
She sings and she got invited to do something with, like Megan Trainor and a bunch of singers and they did an acapella version of like one of Megan Trainor's songs and I was watching this music video and like she was like a little rashie in the professionally filmed music video and I thought you know what? They probably had makeup artists trying to keep the rashiness down. Like all of this stuff. She could have been like no, we can't post that because it's rashie, but I'm sure she had the same thought in her mind. Well, I'm making this video. Who cares if I have a little rash because I'm excited or anxious or whatever that is? And so I think being authentic can one fix your own mentality about all of this stuff. But it can also help other people show up authentically and not have that comparison syndrome.
0:45:24 - Michelle Pualani
That's also something that I am completely trying to work on as well. I know that I want to present it's in a certain way and I have a certain level of professionalism and perfectionism and what it is that I want to do, and so I am really personally working on this particular thing showing up with more authenticity and not just in the like show up authentically in your brand kind of way, but really in the sense of who am I as a person. It's funny because I get this feedback that I'm a very serious person, which I understand, because when I listen to myself and when I do I think you know Joy and I have talked about this is showing up in this podcast is that there's a certain sense of like being put together and being professional and being intentional, which I respect and I want to have still. But if you knew me in my personal life like goofy, dorky, ridiculous, like absurd would be a lot of really great descriptors of how I actually show up in my personal life. And so it's interesting because I feel like I have struggled to authentically share and demonstrate who I am in the social media space. It always feels like there's been a little bit of a barrier for me and it's not anything that anyone else has ever done or made me feel necessarily in this case, but I have just struggled to share authentically in this way and I haven't quite figured it out. So I think we need to actually have a specific episode about how to do this effectively and to really demonstrate who you are as a person, to break down that barrier, because it is a barrier to prospective clients, to your audience members, to the community that you're building.
If you show up in a perfectly put together and coiffed way, it's not what people wanna see, especially today with our social media landscape the way that it is. People want that relatability, they want to break down the barrier, they want to see behind the scenes and it's such an important part of how we're showing up in our online brands. This brings us to our fourth and final strategy, which is really having personalized goals. So when we think about goal setting which is totally my jam oftentimes we get caught up in what we see other people doing. Oh, that person has a six figure business, so that's gonna be one of my goals. Oh, that person has built a seven figure membership, and so I wanna have a seven figure membership.
And whereas these things can act as catalysts to your inspiration, they can also be really detrimental in the goals that you're setting for yourself, not because they're unrealistic, but simply because they may not be right for you and your business choices. You may need to identify what it is that works for you in your business structure. That includes with content creation. That includes with the business model that you have. That includes with your offer development. It includes all of the choices that you make, and so sometimes we're some chasing after a goal that we've set for ourselves only because we saw someone else set and reach that goal, and so now we've absorbed it. And so it's important to really think of benchmarking your own achievements for yourself internally instead of again externally, against someone else and what they've got Really having those individualized goals that are based on your values.
What's important for your business and your life? If you only need to make X number of dollars in order to pay your bills, save, invest and pay yourself out enough to do what you wanna do in your life and maintain your lifestyle, why are you working over and above and the top for some unrealistic financial goal that you're sacrificing your day to day life for? So really paying attention to those aspirations and letting them come from your internal compass, as opposed to, again, what you're seeing happen outside of you, and then really just measuring that progress. So, knowing that your steps, your stages, are going to look so, so different than anyone else's, knowing that the steps that you're taking through the process are going to feel different, they're gonna look different, they're going to result in different metrics, they're gonna result in different successes, and accepting what that looks like for you, and trying to release again some of that comparison.
I look at some of the people in the online space and seeing 21 year olds create seven figure businesses via social media and that to me is like, oh my gosh, I am so old, I'm so late to the game, how come I don't have this incredible brand and business yet? And then there are other 45, 50 year olds who are just hitting their stride and seeing their success. So it's challenging because, again, we wanna look to these external factors for inspiration, for motivation, for knowing what's possible for us and saying, oh, that's something that I didn't even realize was an opportunity. I wanna take that opportunity or I wanna go in that direction. But we also have to be so, so conscious about not then judging, criticizing and comparing ourselves internally to that external happening that then again puts us into that spiral, that doubt, that insecurity, that lack of faith and that feeling of hopelessness that sometimes happens as a result of comparison syndrome. So really setting those personal goals for you and realizing and identifying what those values are and sticking to your aspirations along the way.
0:50:59 - Joanna Newton
This is such an interesting conversation today. I think we hit on some really important points. The first thing I think about is that comparison syndrome is real and it affects how we show up in the world, and so it can affect our ability to make decisions as a business owner, how we relate to friends, how we relate to a partner. It can affect just our mindset, our mental health. All of those things when we are stuck comparing ourselves with others can really take a toll on who we are. And then, on top of that, there's some things that we can do, once we're aware of that, to keep us out of that sort of stuck mindset. That can be things like setting our own personal goals. It can be things like understanding the root of where that comes from. Through therapy, through becoming more self-aware, we can limit social media exposure. We can not follow people or spend less time doing those things. There's a lot we can do to get ourselves out of it, but I think some of the most important things that we've talked about is just back to that concept of putting yourself first.
If you're setting goals based on what you want, not what everyone else wants, if you're setting your benchmarks based on your personal growth? Are you moving forward? Are you getting close to your goals? If you're actually sitting there putting yourself first, then you're not going to compare yourself to others. You're going to root for others. You're going to say well, my goal is to make $100,000 in core sales. If you get to $50,000, you're going to be like halfway there. I'm going to keep going.
But if you're sitting there looking at your friend who has $1 million in core sales, you're going to be thinking you're behind when you're not, because you're not behind based on your goals for yourself, for your values, for what you want. I think my biggest takeaway from this conversation is that this journey that we're on through this podcast, through what we're doing together, of really putting ourselves first in our business, is a huge step that we can take to get out of comparison syndrome and be stuck there. I would definitely encourage our listeners to think about ways that you can do that. Put yourself first, think about your goals, your values, your passions, what you want, because then you're going to be a lot less concerned with what everyone else is doing.
0:53:38 - Michelle Pualani
Putting yourself first, which really is the theme of what we're trying to accomplish and what we're looking to share when it comes to the meaning of how we show up in our lives and how we show up in our businesses. I think through the conversation today, what really stuck out to me is this internal versus external. We have the sense of responsibility when it comes to how we make choices. When we can own that to its fullest extent, that's when, I think, a lot of that external stuff starts to fade away. We start to focus more internally on our own decision-making process in our own belief system, on our own thought patterns and, again, how we're showing up in the world.
I think it's so important for us to be able to take the time to reflect, to be able to be comfortable and confident enough with ourselves to show up in spite of the numbers show up, in spite of the follow show up, in spite of the sales.
So many of the people the mentors, the advisors and the influencers that I look up to at this point they all started at ground zero in some way, identifying and acknowledging that they continue to put out content even when it flopped, that they continued to reiterate on their offer, even when they didn't make any sales, and learning those behind the scenes stories of what it really took for major creators at this point years of effort and time and energy and failures to understand enough to be at the level of success that they are at now really has transformed the way that I have thought about comparison syndrome. Learning myself as an individual, as a human being, as someone who's on this path, and not worrying so much about where other people are and just focusing on what I'm doing, has made all the difference in my ability to show up and my ability to be more consistent in the things that I know that I'm meant to be doing to reach that goal someday.
0:55:37 - Joanna Newton
Awesome. Thank you, Michelle, for sharing that and leading us through this conversation, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in so that you can combat comparison syndrome right alongside us. Hit subscribe to follow along. Please leave us a review if you enjoyed today's episode and share it with a friend. It is one thing you can do today to prioritize you first in business and life.
