Everyday Social Comparison Only Holds Power Over us if We Let It

Imagine we lived in a world where there was no social media. In a world where there weren’t people telling you that you have to look a certain way, dress like this, dress like that.

Imagine.

Wouldn’t life be so much easier?

A life where you don’t have to care about what people think about you. A life where you’re not judged for who you are or what you look like and not have to be told what you have to be.

Unfortunately, the reality is that Social Media has taken over the world setting standards. I’m sure that we all have scrolled through social media and saw someone and thought, “waw, I wish I was like them,” or “I wish I looked like them,” or “I wish I was living their life.” I’m sure we’ve all said that multiple times.

But the reality is that we don’t see the behind the scenes of that photo.

Think in reverse. People don’t usually post their downs and only post their ups in life. So what are we really comparing our lives to? Life has always been unfair. No one lives the same.

Be true to yourself. If you had the opportunity to put your life away in a hat and then blindly choose someone else’s life from that hat, would you? Wouldn’t you be content? Wouldn’t you immediately become grateful for all the positive things you have?

My Realization at 16 

I was today years old as a 16 year old when I realized that people my age and even older wake up and the first thing on their mind is:

“What should I wear today so people think I’m cool?”

For me, that was a big surprise. I thought thoughts like those only existed in movies.

Knowing that there was a whole other world that existed without my awareness baffled me. It didn’t make sense. Not once in my life did I think about what people could think about me. In fact, I never cared, because I knew I was living for me and me only.

But I also realized the mental trap that people could be living in everyday. Something I haven’t gone through but yet, lots of people go through.

Ask yourself, when you go to school or work do you really care about what other people are wearing and try to identify what that says about them?

Make it make sense.

I’m sure you don’t. And just like that, everyone is there for their own goals. Just like you don’t look at them, they don’t look at you.

Live for you. ✨

Overcoming the Noise: Shifting the Script

So how do you accept yourself for who you are, when society is constantly telling you that you’re not good enough?

When we come to self-acceptance, it’s learning to talk to yourself positively and ignoring the negative thoughts. Yes, it may sound crazy to be talking to yourself but ladies and gentlemen, words are powerful. Words can make a change, and yes, it’s words that changed my life for the better.

There are two types of self-talk: positive and negative. Shifting from negative to positive self-talk is not easy. You first have to identify the type of negative self-talk that you have.

There are four main types of negative self-talk:

• Personalizing: When you blame everything on yourself.

• Magnifying: When you focus completely on the negative aspects of a situation while ignoring the positive.

• Catastrophizing: When you expect the worst to happen and refuse to let logic or reasoning persuade you otherwise.

• Polarizing: When you see the world strictly in black-and-white, good-and-bad, believing there is no middle ground for processing life’s events.

  
  

Once you’ve identified your specific type of negative self-talk, you can then go on to changing it to positive self-talk. This task requires intense practice and time; it does not develop overnight.

My favorite self-affirmation used to be “Be your own best friend.” Recently, it turned into something much stronger:

“You are your own best friend.”

As a young Psychology and Mental Health advocate, I do understand that social anxiety to the extreme is very much a real disorder. I am not blindly ignoring the fact that it is. This is only a general post for everyday life, and we all go through different challenges in life. One cannot change overnight, but consistency will cause change.