Ep #47: The Downfall of Comparison

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 47.

Welcome to Weight Loss for Successful Women, a podcast for women who are ready to break the diet cycle and end their struggle with weight for good. Here’s your host, Fortune 100 executive and Certified Life Coach, Shannan Christiansen.

Hello loves. So happy to be back with you today. I cannot believe we are only three episodes away from number 50. I’m going to do something special for episode number 50, so stay tuned for the special announcement.

Today, we’re going to talk about something that we do, and it keeps us ladies from losing weight. It’s so important that we stop doing this. But as always, before we get into the show, I want to give a listener shout-out to Frances. She wrote a review of the show.

She wrote, “Enjoyed the session. Felt like you were talking to me. Going to try and meet these feelings head on. Thank you so much.” Thank you so much, Frances. It means a lot to me that you love this and that you’re listening. Thank you to all the ladies who’ve taken the time to leave a review. I really appreciate it. If you’re loving this show, please leave a review of the show. I would so appreciate it.

How many of you ladies watch true crime? Seriously, I’ve steered away from it, but Paul and I have been secretly binge-watching episodes. I get so caught up in them, especially the ones where they didn’t really do it and they got it wrong.

Oh my goodness loves, I was up at 3am last Saturday night because I could not stop watching Outcry. It’s on HBO. It’s a series and it’s about this football player who is wrongly accused and convicted. I mean, I don’t want to give it all away.

But I mean, I was so involved. Seriously. I had to stop. I cannot get caught up like that. So we had a switch to some comedies. Jim Gaffigan has a new special out and so we started watching that. I mean, I do think he’s funny actually. He makes me laugh.

So loves, I cannot wait to get into what we’re going to talk about today. And it is comparison. I’ve been thinking about this a lot because we as women do this so much. I was researching this topic and one article said we do this at minimum 10% of our day. 10% of our thoughts a day we are comparing ourselves, our lives, our bodies to someone else.

It made me think when I was a new director in my previous company, I had this amazing peer and I stepped into her old role. I mean, she’s amazing. She’s one of the best humans I know. She works her tail off and I started comparing myself to her.

I started having doubts about my own value, my own skillset. I started believing I had to be like her. I started working early, staying late, doing things like she did them. It was killing me and killing my confidence.

I am unique, I have a unique set of skills. I am my best when I lead from the heart and show up like me. Comparing myself to her just made me a worse leader. She’s one of my best friends and I love her to death. We’ve actually had conversations because she did the same thing. She was comparing herself to me.

So here we both were, incredible leaders, comparing ourselves to each other. And thinking we needed to be different than we were. That is where comparison leads you. It makes you think you need to be different, that you should be farther along, that you should be doing something different.

Ultimately, it leads you to believe that you’re just not good enough. I work on this with my Transform weight loss program ladies. They see what others are doing. They see how much weight others have lost. And then they start comparing.

They start doubting where they are, what they’re doing, and then they start sabotaging themselves. This is what happens when we compare our journeys and our lives to others. We start sabotaging our own success and doubting that we’re good enough.

When I was losing weight, I had to stop the comparisons. I had to notice when I was comparing my body, my journey, my success to others. Think how often you are comparing yourself to others. You’re browsing social media, thinking most everyone is living a better life than you. Then you start comparing your body, your job, your house, your partner.

You compare your entire life to someone else. You know that old saying, we always believe the grass is greener on the other side. The crazy part of it all, we have no idea what others are going through. We are all human and have a human brain. We all have this 50:50 life.

We do not escape this life without pain, doubt, shame, fear, guilt, and worry. Every human on the planet experiences all the emotions, good and bad. A famous Teddy Roosevelt quote is, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Think about that for a second, love.

Every time we compare ourselves to someone else, it is taking some of our joy, happiness, belief in ourselves. Every single thought. Comparison will keep you from losing weight because you will start to sabotage your own success. You will go back to diet mentality.

I see this so much in weight loss. My Transform ladies will be losing weight, but then someone posts a bigger number. So they will start to doubt if they’re doing it right. Then they will start to feel fear. Then when they feel fear, they start to overeat, they stop making their realistic plan every day, they start doubting their own success.

They think they “should” be farther along. But I teach them how to be transform bosses. Bosses of their own weight loss and their own mind. Then they get back on track and keep losing weight with the amazing support they get in the Transform weight loss program.

Thinking we should be farther along is one of the biggest lies and ways we self-sabotage ourselves. When we tell ourselves we should be farther along, then we start saying this is not working, I’m a failure, I can’t do this, my body is broken. We lie to ourselves so we can quit.

This is what comparison does. This simple thought of I should be like so-and-so, and then it just slowly starts to fall apart and leads to quitting. Quitting on ourselves again. Then we quit, we beat ourselves up, and my love, welcome to the diet rollercoaster.

If you want to stop comparing yourselves to others, start by first getting really honest about when and how often you’re doing it. Then when you notice the thoughts of comparison, decide on purpose that you do not want to believe that anymore.

And as I always say, talk to yourself more than you listen. Comparison is something we, as women, have been doing for a long time. So have some grace with yourself as you start to notice how often you’re doing it. Then when you notice, simply tell yourself, not today, my love.

Come up with a simple phrase that you can gently tell yourself that you’re not going into the downward spiral of why someone else is better or doing right. You’re not going to go into all the reasons that you’re doing it wrong. Just simply say not today, my love.

Starting to notice and then starting to redirect your thoughts is a great place to begin this work. And if you’re one of my Transform ladies, I challenge you to post about this in your accountability group. All the thoughts of comparison, and then help each other out.

Here are some transformational questions if you’re not in Transform so you can begin this work. Number one, what areas of your life do you compare yourself to others the most? Number two, how does comparison sabotage your weight loss? Number three, what statement do you want to say to yourself when you notice you are comparing yourself to someone else?

So good, my loves. I’ll see you next week where we are going to dive into what is this thing called weight loss coaching. I can’t wait to spend some time with you again next week. Bye for now, love.

If you love this work and you want to go deeper, take my free course. You can learn more about it at bflycoaching.com/free-course. Bye for now loves.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and want to learn more, come over to bflycoaching.com. That’s B – F – L – Y coaching dot com. See you next week!