Ep 102: Comparison - How to do it Differently
By Charlotte Cummings | Feel Better Podcast
Today we’re talking about comparison—why we do it, why it stings, and how to turn it from a harsh inner critic into something that’s kinder, more useful, and aligned with your values. My aim: help you compare less, and when it does pop up (because it will), know exactly how to rewire the next step so it serves you.
Why We Compare (And Why It Feels So Awful)
We compare ourselves constantly—looks, parenting, careers, homes, relationships. That’s normal. Social comparison theory (1950s psychology) explains we scan others because there’s no objective “enough” measure in life; we use people as our yardstick. Evolution also wired us to track our place in the tribe—it once helped us survive.
The problem is that comparison rarely lands neutrally. It usually collides with something deeper: our unbearable feeling.
Your Unbearable Feeling Is Hiding in Your Comparisons
If you’re new to the concept: most of us have one (maybe two) feelings we find particularly hard to bear—e.g., failure, rejection, not-good-enough, being left out, being criticised. Comparison often acts as a safety mechanism to avoid that feeling.
“They’re achieving more than me” → pokes the failure button.
“She looks perfect, I don’t” → pokes not-good-enough or rejection.
We also do what Brené Brown calls meaning making—we attach a painful story to neutral observation: She’s doing X → therefore I’m failing. The meaning is optional. You can notice without turning it into self-judgement.
Do the healing work on your unbearable feeling and comparison softens from “unbearable” to “unpleasant-but-tolerable”.
Rewire the Next Step: Making Comparison Work For You
You may not stop the first instant of comparison—but you can change what happens next. Think of your brain as a well-worn groove; we’re going to carve a kinder one.
1) Turn it into values clarity
Ask:
What does this show me about my values?
Do I actually want that—or am I being pulled by the crowd?
What choice aligns with who I’m becoming?
Example: Everyone’s buying designer handbags. You pause. Your values (sustainability, financial freedom, experiences over status) say no thanks. Decision made—without self-loathing.
2) Turn it into learning
If someone is nailing an area you struggle with, ask them how. Be specific. People love sharing their know-how. You’ll likely get generous, practical insight you can apply.
3) Turn it into kindness
Try: “Good for them. And good for me—here’s what matters in my life right now.” Then redirect your attention back to your lane.
The Real Cost of Constant Comparison
Unchecked, comparison:
Strains relationships (competition replaces celebration).
Fuels shame, perfectionism, and shaky self-esteem.
Derails your identity and goals (you live someone else’s values).
Flattens gratitude, which is a major buffer for mental health.
Do a quick input audit: which accounts, conversations, or environments spike comparison? Mute/unfollow/limit and add inputs that teach, inspire, or soothe.
Practical Tools You Can Use Today
A. The “Compare → Clarify” Script
I’ve noticed I’m comparing.
What’s my unbearable feeling here?
What’s the meaning I’m adding (and can drop)?
What do my values say?
Is there something I want to learn—or can I simply wish them well and move on?
B. Build gratitude on purpose
Three tiny, specific gratitudes each evening. Micro is better than grand: the warm smile at school pick-up; the way the light hit the kitchen; the two minutes you sat down with a hot cuppa. Gratitude insulates against comparison.
C. Perfectionism, used wisely
Excellence is brilliant—in the right places. If perfectionism runs the show everywhere, it will hollow you out. Choose where to dial it up, and where to dial it right down. (My podcast episode on overcoming perfectionism + downloadable guide can help.)
Remember: Imperfect People Are the Most Relatable
We think people will love us when we’re polished and impressive. In reality, people bond with honesty, warmth, and the messy middle. Your imperfections are not a PR problem; they’re your bridge to connection.
Also, a reframe I use often: Comparison is an act of violence against yourself. It’s optional, and it hurts. If you catch it, choose a kinder next move.
Quick Recap:
Comparison often pokes your unbearable feeling. Heal there to soften comparison’s sting.
The meaning you attach is optional. Notice, don’t narrate.
Use comparison to clarify values, learn, or extend kindness to yourself.
Protect your inputs. Comparison drains relationships, identity, and gratitude.
Gratitude and selective perfectionism are powerful buffers.
Authenticity beats gloss. Every time.
If this landed, you might also like my episodes on Unbearable Feelings, Overcoming Perfectionism, and Self-Esteem.
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Well, welcome along to today's episode where we're going to be talking all about comparison.
Now, my mission today is to help you do comparison a bit less, to be more aware of where you are comparing yourself to other people in life and to also have the ability to turn comparison around so that when it happens for you, you are able to pull that back to a place of kindness, gentleness with yourself and perhaps an opportunity to learn and grow if there is something within that comparison that reflects what you're wanting to change in your own life. We do comparison almost constantly. We look at other people and we decide their teeth are whiter than ours, they're slimmer than us, they've got better muscles than we do or they're parenting better than we are or they're achieving more, their life is more together than ours.
We constantly do this thing where we compare ourselves to other people. That is natural and normal. In the 1950s, a psychologist came up with the idea of social comparison theory.
Now, this is a concept that captures the sense that we are all constantly comparing ourselves to other people because there's actually no objective measure of whether we are enough in our lives. So we consistently look around us and see how other people are doing and that becomes our measure of whether we are enough. Also, from an evolutionary perspective, we can understand that comparison happens because we are wired to survive within our tribe.
We're wired to assess where we are placed within a group of people because for a period of time in human history, that really mattered in terms of our physical survival. So if it's annoyed you for a really long time that Theodore Roosevelt said comparison is the thief of joy and you've never known how to do less of it or how to do it differently, then this episode is for you. OK, so the first point that I want to make here is that comparison almost always relates to our unbearable feeling.
If you are not familiar with this concept, I really encourage you to go back and listen to my episode all about unbearable feelings. But for a quick recap, this is about how we all have a feeling or sometimes two that we really want to avoid. So we have a feeling that for us is actually unbearable.
It's not just unpleasant like other feelings. It's the big feeling that we really want to set ourselves up to not feel. Now, that is different for different people.
So for some people, they have an unbearable feeling of failing. For others, it's an unbearable feeling of being rejected or not feeling good enough or being left out. Whatever it is that you hold as your unbearable feeling that you want to avoid feeling, if you are comparing yourself to other people, there will usually be a thread there around your unbearable feeling.
Now, to give you an example of that, if you look at somebody else and think they are achieving more with their life than I am, then often that will speak to something like an unbearable feeling of failure. Are you worried that you're not doing enough, being enough, that you're falling behind, that other people are going to perceive you as a failure or that you are perhaps even going to perceive yourself as a failure? So you need to pedal harder and faster and do and achieve more to avoid that feeling. And in the act of comparing yourself to other people, you're looking for that feedback to help you feel safe, to help keep you safe from feeling that unbearable feeling, the feeling that you really want to avoid.
So comparison becomes functional for us when it comes to our unbearable feeling, because what we're trying to do is avoid that feeling we really don't want to feel. And comparison is actually a key way that we avoid our unbearable feelings and keep ourselves safe. Renee Brown has this really great concept that I love here and it's called meaning making.
And this is the idea that when we see something in somebody else or when we go through a particular situation, we can come away and then attach meaning to that. So an example of that might be seeing another parent do something really great and then turning that from a relatively innocent situation into critiquing ourselves and saying, well, that means that I'm not doing well enough, that I'm a failure as a parent, that I'm not good enough, that I need to do better. So we add this layer of meaning to what it is that we observe and experience in the world around us, that I'm a failure as a parent, that I'm not good enough, that I need to do better.
So keep in mind that when it comes to comparison, our unbearable feeling is pretty central. And any work that we do to heal from our unbearable feeling, to downgrade that from being unbearable to just being unpleasant and something that we can tolerate just like other feelings, is work that will serve you well when it comes to comparing yourself less to other people. And keep in mind, too, that that layer of meaning making that we do is actually entirely optional.
We can just observe good things about other people. We can appreciate things about them in a sense that it is not a competition. We can just see those things without dropping down into that other layer of meaning making.
Now, I want to encourage you here, if comparison is something that you struggle with, that this is something that can be rewired within your brain. So we know our brains are actually a lot more like a big, malleable lump of plastic than anything else. We can teach our brains to do things in a different way if we want to.
And I think how that works when it comes to comparison is being aware that when we have that moment of comparison, we can then intervene in terms of what we do next. So the moment of comparison is less able to be controlled. That is not going to slow down or go away anytime soon in the modern world that we live in.
And our brains basically have like this little tree when it comes to our neural pathways. So something happens and then our brain gets used to this little groove of and then I go there and then I go there and then I think this and then I feel that. And what I want to encourage you to do when it comes to comparison is make comparison great again.
How can you turn comparison around into something that actually serves you? When you notice yourself comparing yourself to another person, comparing your life to theirs, you have an opportunity to think about your values, to think about your own life decisions, to think about why you're doing your life the way that you are. Because sometimes if we observe something else in another person, it might not actually be for us. It might be that we're making a different choice and that actually aligns better with our values.
It might be that we have a value around kindness to ourselves and what we want to do is draw ourselves more into that place of kindness when we find ourselves comparing to other people. So my encouragement to you is to observe when the comparison happens and to think then about what happens next. What does this comparison tell me? Is there anything I want to do differently? How does this clarify my values? Help the comparison land in a better, kinder and gentler place.
Comparison doesn't always have to mean judgment, doesn't always have to mean feeling bad, doesn't always have to mean being harsh and beating up on yourself. The other thing I want to suggest to you is that comparison can actually be really good if we turn it around into a learning opportunity. Now I'm going to tell you a little bit of a story here.
Recently I found this really cool person to follow online. Her life looked great and it looked like she had a few things together that I didn't so much have together. Now I had two options there.
I either observed what was happening for her and thought I am not good enough when it comes to that person's standards and how they operate in their life or I could take this opportunity to learn from them. Now one of the things that this person was absolutely nailing is an area of my life that I have a little bit of a struggle in. It's actually not anything too profound.
It's around admin systems, some of the stuff that they seem to be nailing, that they had some professional expertise and background around that actually made a career out of this for a chunk of time in their life. And what I did was I messaged her and I asked her some questions. I said, hey, I'm struggling with this and I'm really interested from your background, what would you do when it comes to this particular issue? Now I didn't ask a really open, broad, general question.
I asked something quite specific about how would you manage this particular issue? Well, that person was so kind and generous to me. They gave me some really great insight into how they would approach something. They gave me some tools and some skills that I didn't have before that conversation.
And I implemented the things that they told me and I'm really enjoying what I learned from them. Now this is your reminder that if you observe someone else who's got something together in their life, go and ask them what it is that they are doing, how they do it. Go and learn from that person, whatever it is that you can learn from them.
Now the challenge for me in this situation was this person had knowledge and experience that I didn't have. And that was why she was finding something easier in her life. That was why she was nailing this particular area of her life.
And when you compliment someone, when you tell them you think that they're doing a great job of something and you want to learn from them, the chances are that they will be super generous in their response to you. I loved the story. And I think those moments that we have with other human beings where we admit to some kind of struggle, where we appreciate someone else's strengths and where we let them help us is a really beautiful thing.
She ended up feeling so satisfied by that, super proud of me. I loved her input on this issue. So remember next time you're comparing, actually is that an invitation to go and learn something new from that person? Now, one of the other things I think is really important if you want to try and compare yourself to others less is to be really clear on your motivation around why you want to do this differently.
Now, one of the key dangers when it comes to comparison is that if we're comparing ourselves to other people, we can end up living their lives with their values, with their way of living. We can end up accidentally aligning ourselves in a direction that isn't a fit for us. I want to tell you a little story here.
I reached a point in my life where I observed that so many other people around me were buying designer handbags. It appears to be a thing that women do in their late thirties and early forties. They move to a place of going, OK, I'm going to put myself first.
I'm going to buy this status symbol of a handbag that costs me, I don't know, five, ten thousand dollars. And this is going to be my new bag that is my moment to say, I put myself first. I have some disposable income to spend on this.
And it becomes a thing that women do around a particular age, in my observation. Now, I reached that junction. I was looking at what other people around me were doing, thinking, oh yeah, I want to do that.
And then I have really struggled as I have thought this through. I've looked at, yeah, I would buy that if I wanted to. And then I've come back and gone, it's actually really not what I want to do.
That doesn't fit with my values around consumerism. That doesn't fit with my environmental values. That doesn't fit with my values around how I invest my money.
I think the real badass move is to put that money on my mortgage or to invest it in some way. Now, I am not someone who is about total frugal living, never spending money on yourself, never having things that are a bit of an indulgence in your life. That wasn't what this was about.
Buying an expensive designer handbag was a status symbol that actually didn't align with my values. And that moment of going, everyone else is doing this, am I going to do it too? Was an opportunity for me to clarify my values and to live in a way that was in alignment with the life and values that I hold, that I want to live to. Now, this is where I think it's really important that we have things in our lives like vision boards, that we have a clear sense of what our values are, that we know what it is our goals are.
In terms of my own goals around financial freedom, we want to pay our mortgage off because we want to then be able to go on great holidays and have experiences with our children. That is more important to me than what other people think of me by having a designer bag. So remember that you can use the opportunities that comparison presents to you to clarify and be firm in your own values.
But it's important for our motivation around this issue to be clear on why doing a bit less comparison actually really matters or engaging our critical thinking when we find ourselves doing comparison as a key point that we want to hold to. We don't then automatically do the behaviour or take the action that the comparison tells us to do. We take pause, we evaluate how that fits for us with the journey of our own lives and our own values.
I think the other thing that's really important here is that we recognise that comparison is not without cost. Comparison has a cost to our relationships. When we do competition more than we can do celebration and appreciation of the people who are around us.
It has an emotional cost in terms of developing feelings of shame within us or low self-esteem or being motivated too much towards perfectionism. It can have an identity and a personal impact in terms of distracting us from our own goals, our own journey, our own sense of ambition within our own lives. And it can have a spiritual impact in terms of us having a lack of gratitude for what it is that we do have, for the things that we're doing well, for the people around us who we love.
So I wonder today if one of the messages that you might need to hear is that it's important to remember that comparison is not without harm. And maybe there is an opportunity here for you to reflect on the extent to which you're currently doing comparison. How many accounts are you following that lead you to think that life needs to look a particular way and that you're not doing well enough in your own life? Go and follow some other accounts that make you feel better or that help you learn and do things differently.
But clean up your life so that you are not doing comparison quite so easily because it is harmful and it's not without cost to us personally, relationally, spiritually and in terms of our own mental and emotional health. And some final points. Remember that actually imperfect people inspire other people.
Nobody really likes to see this glossy person who presents themselves as an expert who's got it all together, who doesn't have challenges in their lives. So remember, actually, it's our imperfections that people can connect with. It's our own story and the messy middle bits of our lives that people actually like.
So if you're telling yourself that you need to be perfect, you need to have it all together in order for people to like you, that is quite simply not true. We know that it is authenticity that builds connection and human relationships. So being honest, being authentic about your strengths and your weaknesses, the things that you're nailing and the things that actually you can outsource or turn the volume down on or accept the fact that you're not so good at them, that is something that builds authenticity in our lives and actually helps other people like us and connect with us more.
This lie that we tell ourselves that our lives need to look a certain way, that we need to be a certain way to find acceptance is quite simply harmful and untrue. And if you're living according to that lie, you're going to find yourself pretty quickly in a space of unhappiness. So my encouragement to you today is to be super aware of those moments where comparison is telling you you need to be a particular way.
You need to look a particular way, speak a particular way, act a particular way, achieve to a particular standard in order for people to like you, because it's absolute BS. One of the other things that I find really helpful to remember and remind myself of in moments where I find myself comparing to other people is that comparison is actually an act of violence against myself. It is so damaging.
It is brutal. It is entirely optional. And it is not something that I need to do, to do comparison in a way that actually makes me feel worse.
Yes, I can have that moment of noticing something that is different between me and another person. And I can use that as an opportunity to learn or to clarify my values, to ask them something, to grow in a particular way. Or I can simply turn that into kindness towards myself and going, look at them.
Aren't they doing great? Good for them. But my focus is over here. Here are the things that really matter to me in this chapter.
Here's what I'm trying to achieve. What matters to me most. So be real about the fact that comparison is super harmful to you.
And where it happens, we want to turn it back for good. Now, one of the greatest buffers to this act of comparison that we do pretty constantly is to remember our gratitude. Gratitude doesn't necessarily come naturally to all people.
Some people are more positive, notice changes and developments more than other people do so on a natural, everyday basis. But for all of us, practices of gratitude are significant and important when it comes to our own mental health and when it comes to having resilience against this constant comparison that we're drawn into in the world around us. Now, if you've listened to this episode today and you're feeling a little bit challenged around this topic, I've got another couple of episodes that I would really encourage you to go and listen to.
One is on overcoming perfectionism. Now, that is one of my top most downloaded episodes. It is something I have had so much good feedback from and a number of people have gone back and listened to it again and again, which is why it's ranked so highly on my episodes list.
I talk about myself as a recovering perfectionist, as someone who wants to apply their perfectionism well in certain areas of their life. Now, I don't believe that perfectionism is something we want to banish. If we have this desire within us for excellence, that is actually a really good thing.
We just need to apply that in the areas of our life that really matter to us and to know how to dial that up and down as we need to, to keep reflecting on that, to be in control of where and how and why we apply our perfectionism. So I've got a great episode on that topic and a downloadable resource on that, a guide around reflecting on your perfectionism. And then as well, there is the self-esteem episode.
If you feel like you really need to do some work on your relationship with yourself, on how you feel as you kind of hold yourself in the world around you, then the self-esteem episode would be a really good next step for you. Okay, so let's do a bit of a recap of this episode. Remember that when you do comparison, it relates to your unbearable feeling and that layer of meaning making that we do is entirely optional.
You can just let yourself have those moments of noticing the differences between yourself and another person and let that be what it is without attaching that meaning making. And the more work that you do around your unbearable feeling and healing from that, the better. We've talked about turning comparison around for good, making it great again, using those moments of comparison as an opportunity to clarify your values, to clarify your own stance on something and to have that moment of turning the comparison around for good, especially when it comes to remembering that comparison can be an opportunity to learn.
People love being complimented on something that they are doing well in life and so often they're willing to share with us if we ask them their secrets, the things that they do, the skills or experience that they have that helps them to be able to do that that we can learn from. So comparison can be a great gift if we use it as a genuine opportunity to learn. Remember the motivation of why you want to do less comparison and turn comparison around for yourself, because if you get sucked into this world of comparison, you end up living somebody else's life.
You end up living your life according to their values, according to their goals and priorities, which is not what we want for ourselves. And remember that comparison comes with a cost. It comes with a cost to our relationships, to our own mental and emotional health, a cost to us spiritually and in terms of our identity and our own life journey.
So I hope that this episode has inspired you today to think about the place of comparison in your life, to think about the reality that you don't have to just do this in a way that comparison is damaging and harmful to you. You can turn comparison around in a way that has a gentleness to it and in a way that comparison is an opportunity to clarify your own values and stay on your own course. I hope you've really enjoyed this episode today and consider going and listening to some of those other episodes I've talked about, overcoming perfectionism, self-esteem and unbearable feelings.
