Don’t self reject
You have ONE job.
Use social media as tool not a whip
Social comparison
Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 103 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast!
SO we all have one main job in life and this goes for every single person. I’m going to tell you what that is at the end…Don’t you love a good hook like that?
I was listening to a podcast this last week and I thought Wow, this is so good and so deep and the guest was talking about how many years it took him to research his book and my mind immediately went to the thought “is my podcast good? Do I go deep enough? Does my book need to be researched for years? But you know what? I caught myself and I turned it around. I realized I was comparing myself to someone who wasn’t me. That is a recipe for disaster, it certainly is not going to increase my happiness. It could cause you to quit or not even start because you think you aren’t good enough because look at all that person has accomplished or all of their degrees or “years of research” right? But they had to start somewhere and that goes for everything in life. If you think that person you see online got their success overnight, I would bet a lot of money that you don’t know the whole story.
Do you ever do this? Compare yourself to someone else? Am I the only one? Odds are you do. I read one study that said 88% of women compare themselves to other women in one way or the other and another 12% weren’t alive…just kidding about that last part. The 88% part is true though…I would argue everyone does it because it’s hardwired into our species according to Leon Festinger who did a whole study on Social comparison. Check it out. I will put his name in the show notes…it’s pretty interesting. Did you know that comparison is one of the leading causes of unhappiness? And social media has just made it worse. We will compare ourselves to others in any area and we do this for different reasons but a major reason is self evaluation because you wonder how you stack up to others around you. But see this is where it gets tricky because when you compare yourself to someone you don’t know on social media, you are comparing yourself to the idea they are presenting about themselves. We’ve all heard about the “highlight” reel of someone else’s life on social media.
So you may think “I’m not posting that picture of myself in that new yoga pose because Layla (I made Layla up for this story) just posted a picture of that same pose and it was so perfect that I’ll just look dumb. But can we be real for a minute? Layla may be a hot mess in every area of her life but yoga. That’s the area she excels in because that is her complete focus. Do you want it to be your complete focus? If that’s your goal then do it. Comparing yourself to Layla who has been doing yoga for 20 years isn’t going to make you better, it’s going to make you crazy. Don’t put yourself down because you aren’t there yet. Post it anyway. You never know who you will inspire. There are levels of success in every arena and the one thing I know is that consistency is where the money is. Layla might do yoga every day for 2 hours and that’s why she’s that good. If your passion is to be that good Then model what Layla is doing but don’t put yourself down on your way to being that good, it will just set you back or make you stop altogether. And remember Layla at one point was where you are. And this applies to anything in life. You must crawl before you walk and when you are attempting to walk, you are going to fall A LOT.
And look we are often comparing our self to the idea that the media or social media puts forth as “success”. They say certain degrees or certain money or certain cars equal success and when we don’t have that we think we are doing something wrong. No way. We each have a path to happiness and no two paths will look the same, don’t fall for that trap. Have you ever been enjoying a salad and then you see a hamburger and fries go by and all of a sudden your salad isn’t looking so great? Comparison at work…Again it happens in every area but this is where our thought work comes in. You are choosing your health over comfort food, you could easily have ordered that but that isn’t on your plan for the week. My husband and I eat out a lot because I don’t love to cook and inevitably the waiter is going to ask us if we want dessert. We generally just laugh and say “Not on a Tuesday!” We reserve that for a Friday or Saturday…and that works for us. Nobody knows what path is best for you but you.
Sometimes you have to think outside the box too.
In my interior design career, I love design so much but I love travel even more and taking on big projects doesn’t lend itself to travel so I thought long and hard about something I could do that would be fulfilling and fun AND allow me to travel as much as I want. Deep down I realized after some reflection that my design practice was ultimately about making people feel beautiful and happy and welcomed. I can do that through my podcast and I get the same fulfillment and bonus…I impact way more people than when I do a design project.
That’s why we have to figure out what our dream is and follow it. No-one has the uniqueness of you. For me, I love to connect and am very comfortable talking to anyone. I also love lifting others and making them feel beautiful and like they can achieve anything they set their mind to so a podcast was the perfect thing.
My message today is this. You have one job and that’s to find your own happiness. Your happiness isn’t going to look like anyone else’s. And it isn’t anyone else’s job to find it for you. I love that thought. Isn’t it freeing? You can decide what happiness means to you and there isn’t one thing anyone else can do about it. Being happy is the ultimate wildly successful lifestyle and it starts internally. And as long as you are physiologically healthy, you control that happiness. I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
