The Truth About The Impact of Comparison

We talk about comparison quite a lot nowadays, thank goooooodness.

What we don’t talk about as much, probably because we can’t fully embody or understand it, is the extent to which comparison impacts us.

SOCIAL COMPARISON

Comparison moves us from the mentality of ‘Me And You’ to ‘Me Versus You’. There’s no wonder we’ve found ourselves in a movement of “female empowerment” because our minds are so disempowered by one another (if we’re not careful).

What do I mean? I mean that when we scroll through Instagram we see other girls posts and rather than feeling inspired or excited by them, our default is to find something negative about them. Although we don’t always say this kind of this out loud, our minds are already composing their thoughts…

“that outfit is so last year”…“her boyfriend isn’t even that good looking”… “it’s a little lame to take selfies nowadays surely, she’s just done her make up for no reason and is sat in her bedroom”… “she’s stunning, I’d never look like that”… “pffft I’d pull that off WAY better than her”

Some of these are extreme examples, and I promise they actually took me a whole to conjure up!!! It’s not nice trying to work out how our minds trick us into ‘Me Verses You’ mentalities. But it’s also not a new concept. Psychologists saw ‘Me Versus You’ or ‘Us Versus You’ mentalities occur from the simple act of putting two peoples into groups. There is something in human nature (when it isn’t challenged) which creates comparison and leads to competition.

One thing you may have noticed is that social comparison seems to lead the mind into two different categories of thinking:

• Extensive grandeur (words relating: flashiness, swankiness, lavishness, pretentiousness): “pffft I’d pull that off WAY better than her”.

Versus

• Depressive inadequacy (words relating: deficient, scarcity, absence, failure): “she’s stunning, I’d never look like that”.

Both categories of thinking lead us into isolation. We either ‘big ourselves up’ or ‘big ourselves down’, and are left alone in both of those places.

No one can relate to one another. And then, our longing for be-longing isn’t satisfied.

So, let’s step into authentic, genuine female empowerment with our heads held high, our minds aware of their tendencies, our hearts full of love, and our actions openly and honestly supportive of what girls and women are doing all across the nation.

Oh, and the men who openly who embrace all of those truths too.

I'll keep you posted.

P.S. you can now PRE-ORDER More Than Just Pretty here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/More-Than-Just-Pretty-Discover/dp/028107786X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525264226&sr=8-1&keywords=MORE+THAN+JUST+PRETTY