118. Comparing Yourself to Others? Try This Instead

Ever find yourself scrolling, watching, or listening to colleagues and thinking, “Why am I not there yet?”  You're not alone.  But here’s the thing: comparison doesn’t tell you anything about you. In this episode, I’m unpacking why our brains default to “compare and despair,” how it sometimes helps, and mostly how it gets in our way. If you’ve been questioning your progress against everyone else’s highlight reel, this one’s for you.

What You’ll Learn

• Why your brain is wired to compare—and why that’s not a character flaw
• The difference between productive and harmful comparison (and how to spot which one you’re doing)
• Coaching questions you can use to reframe the trap in the moment
• How to know if what you’re noticing is actually aligned with your goals, or just another shiny object
• A practical way to shift focus back to your own vision so you stop spiraling

Progress over perfection, always.

If this hit home, I’d love to help you quiet the noise and build a week that actually works for you. Book a free 1:1 consult and let’s figure out what balance looks like in your real life.

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Keywords
comparison trap, overwhelmed SLP, ADHD productivity, executive functioning, work-life balance, private practice stress, productivity coaching, stop comparing yourself

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Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

theresa-harp_1_09-19-2025_123728: 0:28

Hello podcast listeners. Welcome back to the show. I'm recording this episode. It's only the second time I'm recording using this new internal podcasting system that I've come up with and. So there may be some hiccups, there may be some changes in the quality. There may be, I don't know, some mistakes and you'll be here to hear them. But today I am talking about comparison. The comparison trap, right? So if any of you who are listening have ever found yourself looking at. People around you at what they have, at what they do, at how they behave, and you compare yourself to them and you think that everybody else has got it together, they are further along. Why can't I just be like them? What do they have that I can't figure out? Then this episode is for you. Okay? Because let's be honest, everybody at some point in their life has felt this way. And I wanna give you a, I think, a little bit of a perspective shift on not just, I wanna talk about why this happens, but I wanna talk about how it can potentially be useful. But how overwhelmingly unuseful it is. Is that even a word? Right? How dare I say harmful? This can be so like. Anything else? There's nothing that's, you know, it's not all good. It's not all bad. There's a lot of gray area, but I want to give you some productive ways to compare and then help you to get rid of the unproductive ways that you are comparing. Okay? So. If you are someone who questions their progress, if you've been questioning your progress and how it is in relation to the people around you, this one's for you If you are. Creating your private practice and looking around at other people that are creating their private practice or have created their private practice, and you're trying to size up like how far along you are versus how far along they are. This is for you. If you're sitting there writing session notes and you are drained and exhausted and stressed, but you look around and you don't see anyone else who looks drained, exhausted, stressed, this one is for you. All right. So have you ever heard of those expressions? There's two that I hear that like float around in my brain, rent free. One is that comparison is the thief of joy, and then the other one is just this phrase, compare and despair and. I also want you to know that it is completely human and normal to do this. We, our brains do this and they do this in a lot of ways. They, it comes from a good place. Our mind is doing this for good reason. We're trying to keep ourselves safe. We're trying to figure out if we are, you know. Part of that like pack, right? If you think back to like the primitive world and the primitive brain and how early on that the brain was used to keep us safe, it was to protect people, to protect you and to keep you in that pack as a member of that pack. Because if you didn't, you wouldn't survive. And obviously things have advanced tremendously, but our brain is still gonna brain, and so I want you to know that there is nothing that has gone wrong. It's completely human and normal to compare. I do it. My brain does it naturally. I just have to catch it. I'm now because of coaching, so much more aware of when it happens. When it's happening, I can catch it, I can catch it quicker, so it's not even happening as much as it used to. And it's just been this sort of like release of pressure and expectations and it helps me to not only hit my goals, but it helps me to feel better in the process. And for me, that's what. The goals are all about, is feeling good in the process, is feeling overall happy and content with my life. Obviously, not every minute of every day, but net positive, right? I want you to recognize that comparison is in many ways useful comparison. Can be useful. So I just talked about like why it happens and how it was born out of basically protection and safety. But even now, it is possible that you can compare yourself to somebody else or to somebody else's achievements or results and do that in a productive way. The problem is that it takes conscious. Effort to do it in a productive way. If we let our minds just do what our minds are gonna do, then we will not productively compare. We will just compare to shame ourselves, should on ourselves, put ourselves down. But it is possible to look at what is this thing that somebody has? What is this result that somebody has created or achieved, and how did they get that? The comparison is coming from a place of productivity. It's coming from a place of, okay, I wanna create that. I see something that I like. I see something that I want and I want that for myself. So how can I get it? Comparison can also be helpful because it can show you possibility. There's so many times where we tell ourselves that what we want is not possible, but then if we open up our eyes and we're looking around, we may see people around us who have the thing that they want, that we want, the thing that, that we're trying to create, they have it, and so if they have it. Why can't you have it? Right? And that we're asking that in, not in a rhetorical way. We're asking in like, why? Like, why can't you tell me all the reasons why you can't and let's debunk them? Tell me all the reasons why you can and let's amplify them. So if you're looking around and seeing what's possible, and you're comparing to see what's possible. That's a useful way to compare. And again, this is just not the way that we naturally do it. So you, it takes effort. It takes intention to do it this way. Okay. And when we are comparing, okay. It is also useful because it can help us figure out, it can be used as sort of like a check-in or an audit for where we're at right now. How we feel about that. Like how happy am I with the life that I've created right now? What about it is working? What about it isn't working? Sometimes you don't even know like where you, what your feelings are, what your thoughts are about it, until you kind of can see. What the other possibilities are. And think about it this way too, as SLPs, most of us are trained like we, we are trained to do this. This is what we are trained to do in our clinical work, for better or for worse. And I'm not going down that rabbit hole right now. But for better or for worse, we are. Historically have been taught, have been trained to, okay, what does the data show? Look at the data, look at the bell curve, look at the standard score. What's the standard deviation? How do these results compare to the norm? Right now, I, again, I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole. I have thoughts about that and, but that's not the point of this episode. The point of this episode is about the comparison, the act of comparing and how to do it in a positive way and how to stop, do it. Stop doing it in a negative way. So again, this is sort of how we are taught, how we are trained, we're conditioned, our brain is conditioned to look at what is the, what's that average, what's that standard and how do I compare, how do my clients compare? So. All of those are ways and are reasons why it happens are reasons how it can be useful, right? Because if we didn't have, in many cases, you know, if we didn't have those standard scores, if we didn't have that comparison, we would be, it could be more challenging for us to advocate and get the services that we know and believe our clients need. Now, here's the flip side. Would you ever just base your clinical decisions purely on standard scores on an assessment and discount or ignore all of the other data, formal and informal that you have? I hope that the answer is no. I hope that the answer is no because we know as SLPs that the objective data, the formal data, the numbers are one piece of the puzzle. One piece of the puzzle. So if it's true for our clients, if that is true, then how can that be true for us as individuals, as humans? Okay. Keep that in the back of your mind, because if you are somebody who is constantly comparing, we need to start unlearning this skill. We need to start broadening your horizons and broadening your variables that you look at when you are comparing. Okay, so let me talk about some of the ways to build on that. Some of the ways. Comparison is incredibly harmful. Okay. How comparison can be harmful, number one is that comparison does not give you any information about you. It only gives you information about somebody else and our brain. However, we'll take that information in and run it through a filter and apply it to ourselves. So it's almost like we're comparing apples to oranges, right? We're not comparing apples to apples. This person who you are sizing yourself up against, this person has very different circumstances than you do. Sure. There may be some similarities. You might work in the same setting. You might both be, I don't know, have a similar caseload. You might both be moms. I don't know. There are for sure similarities, but there are also lots of differences and you can't always see them. You don't always know what they are. So if you're compar, if you're comparing yourself and your first, second, third chapter of your story to somebody else and their fifth, sixth, seventh chapter. Of their story. That's not a fair comparison. It's just not okay. That's what we need to start recognizing now, when you see what somebody quote unquote has. Or has achieved or accomplished, and you are measuring it up to yourself because again, your brain's gonna do this. I wanna give you some tangible strategies, some tactical tips that you can take with you to help you start to reframe this and to get to a point where you're, if you are comparing, you're doing it in a positive and productive way. Okay, so. Few coaching questions for you. Number one, when you are finding yourself in that comparison loop, ask yourself what exactly do I think that they have that I don't have? Like let's get to the, let's actually look at it. Let's actually bring it up into the light. Examine it. Be curious about it. What is it? What is it that your brain is telling you that they have that you don't? So it could be. Something like, well, um, they have incredible work ethic, and I don't, they're they're willing and able to get here on time every single day and stay late and get their work done, and they focus on their work. And I'm distracted. I don't have that work ethic. I'm lazy. I am, fill in the blanks. Well, is that really true? Second. When you're in this comparison trap, let's just start, wait. I know this is number two, but let's just like take a step back and ask ourselves, do I even want that? Do I even want that thing? Like I see that this person has a private practice and a full caseload and she's hiring and she's got an office and she's got, you know, the population that I like and she's got this, that, and the other. Right? And you're comparing what she has and what she's done to what you have. Do you actually want that? Just because your brain starts comparing and noticing it and comparing doesn't mean that you actually want that. So that's really, really important to get clarity on because if you take nothing else away from this episode, let it be this, do not chase a result or a dream or a vision. That you think you should have or you should want. Instead, invest your time in something that you actually want. Something that is meaningful and purposeful to you, something that feels right to you. So I'll give you an example. I shared this example with a coaching client the other day when I first started my private practice. I first started out of my home and I always worked with kids with hearing loss, and it was just me. And I actually found, I was cleaning out my inbox the other day and I found an email. To my husband. He was not my husband at the time, but it was several years. It was like right as I was starting the practice, but I hadn't actually, it wasn't actually operating at that point, and it talked about my vision of. Having a full-time, working full-time in my practice, and then eventually having employees, having SLPs that worked for me and having a multidisciplinary team. And we all were experts in hearing loss and we all serve children who were deaf and hard of hearing and worked with their families, and that was my vision. And I wanted to be a resource and a hub for families in my area who had kids with hearing loss. And I. I wanted it. I believed in it. I was passionate about it, but I never actually created it because as I got going and life, you know, happened and, and I learned and I grew and changed. Right. I realized that that was no longer what I actually wanted. Yeah, I might have wanted that at one point, but I don't want that now. And so you have to make sure that what you are comparing yourself to is something that actually makes sense for you, and it's something that you actually want. And also think about this, the result that that they have, what is it costing them and are they actually happy? Now we don't need to get involved. Like we, you don't need to get involved even internally in somebody else's thinking, somebody else's circumstances. So please like do this with restraint, but just keep in mind that just because you see something that somebody else has doesn't mean that it came, they, they got it, or that they earned it in a way that you are willing. Or able to create it. We all have different values. We all have different needs. So if somebody really values calm and quiet and independence, um, autonomy. Me, me having a private practice with lots of employees and lots of moving parts is probably not. The right, the right vision, the right fit for that person. So you have to really look at like, what is it costing them to do that? Yeah. Maybe they're all caught up on their documentation, but what are they doing to get there? Like, are they doing it in a way that you've, that aligns with you and your work ethic and your circumstances, or are they operating on. You know, next to no sleep and a bunch of caffeine and never having any time or breaks to do anything else, right? Like what is it costing them? And there is no right or wrong answer here, by the way. I truly, I don't, I'm not trying to judge or like has judgment or shame or anything. About what somebody else has achieved or created. I just want you to recognize that everything comes at a cost. Truly everything comes at a cost, not just a financial cost. I'm not talking about finances here, although that can be part of it. Everything comes at a cost. So you need to figure out is it a cost? Are those costs costs that you're willing to pay, right? Like are you willing to put that out? Only you can decide that. Okay. And then the last thing that I'll offer in terms of comparison is this. I told you it's human. I told you it's normal, right? So if this thought helps you, great, take it. And if not, that's fine too. But one thing that has helped me is recognizing that comparison is an equalizer. What do I mean by that? Comparison is an equalizer. Sounds pretty counterintuitive. Sounds like an oxymoron. What I mean by that is that everybody does it and the people that you are comparing yourself to are sure as SHIT comparing themselves to somebody else, they are looking at other people. The things that they have created or the things that they have achieved, and wondering why they can't have that, why they're falling short, why aren't they measuring up? Everybody's doing it. Everybody's comparing themselves to somebody else. But if we would pause and try to redirect our energy from the comparison to the vision and the, the focus, right? And to the, the thing that we want to creating the thing that we want. It would be so much happier. We'd be so much more peaceful and fulfilled. Just because somebody else has something doesn't mean that's something that you want for yourself, but we're all doing it, trust me. Right, and I gave the example with my client. I gave you the example with moms. So I have, I have, my kids are four. I have, my kids are not four, I have four kids four years apart and they're in elementary school. And so life is, you know, right now in a season of life, it's, it's busy, it's hectic. And there are times when I am looking around at. Obviously I'm a coach and I run my own coaching business, and I'm looking around at coaches who have had their business up and running for, you know, similar lengths of time, and I'm seeing in my mind, like looking at their caseloads, looking at what they're doing at their posts, at their emails, at their podcasts, and thinking, oh my gosh. Like, oh, should I, I want that right. Do I wait? Why haven't I done that? Look at what they're doing. Meanwhile. I am at the book fair, right this past Tuesday. I was able to take time out of my day to go to volunteer at the book fair for my daughter and be there for her, and there was nowhere else. I would rather be like, that's what matters to me right now is to be able to do that. Someone else who's working full time or has this practice that is hustling and bustling and booming, might be looking at me. At the book Fair Thinking, God, I wish I could do that right? And it's not that one is right or the other is wrong. Please hear this right. It's not that one is right and one is wrong. It's about what's right for you. Okay? I hope that this was helpful. I. And make sure if you are not in the SLP support group on Facebook, you pop in there because this is the topic that I'm gonna be covering this week in the group, in posts and a Facebook Live. So you're gonna wanna get in there. Let me know how I can support you in the group. As always, hope you have a great week. I'll talk to y'all next time.