Nicola: [00:00:00] female leaders on fire podcast. I am your host. I am Nicola Buckley, and I am the coach working with women at the very top of the corporate world and those aspiring future leaders to help them find their fires, that passion, that purpose, Sykes statement, so they can have more. More influence and more income as a result and be a real force for much needed change in corporate organizations.

So today I am going to be talking about comparison. And this is something that I know that I can really struggle with, not so much anymore, but I’ve really, really used to. And so many of my clients can struggle with as well. And if you’re a woman that is comparing yourself to others, if you’re comparing yourself to the Instagram models and that how they [00:01:00] look, if you’re comparing yourself to your male peers at work.

Not understanding why they’re getting better feedback than you, or they’re progressing more quickly than you, or if you’re comparing your relationship to someone else’s relationship first, we’ll just say absolute. You’re not alone because it’s a very human thing too. And I’ll go into that a bit more in a minute.

So today I’m going to be talking about comparing and what it is on, what the word actually means and why it’s just it’s in Europe. Process. So you can forgive yourself for comparing, but just, I want to really help you raise awareness. If you are comparing today, how the corporate world really. Plays on that comparing and just almost makes us and leads us to it, especially as, as female leaders.

And then we’re going to talk a little bit about different types of comparing. Then we’re going to talk about a little bit about the destructive nature of comparison and why it’s actually it’s. It can be really negative and have a very damaging effect and it can need you to fit in quite low, big, quite hard [00:02:00] on yourself.

Um, What is a better feeling and how can we start to change the story on comparison? And then we’re going to get into helping you to really just to have some tips and hints and some ways of really starting to change that when you compare to some different things that you can do. So a lot to get through today.

I’m super excited for this episode because I think this is something that we all have done all we can all do at times. And I just want to start with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt and you might have heard of this and this quote is just a super simple, but it’s super powerful to start with. And that is comparison is the fee of joy.

Uh, we just think about that for a moment. Comparison leads to it can lead us to really been negative, but we are where we are in life. It can really over mean that we’re overshadowing and not really owning our achievements. It can take away the joy from our own life because suddenly it doesn’t feel enough and it can set [00:03:00] us on a path to just always looking forward and always wanting more.

And it’s almost the difference between. If we’re comparing a lot, we’re living very much externally. We’re looking at everyone else. Our eyes are drifting and our gaze is falling to other people and their lives and what they’re doing and how they’re performing. It works that living externally and almost living at quite a superficial level and not living truly and deeply, which is when you’re living.

Really from being internally led and you’re living from your heart and what’s important to you rather than the big externally from your head and what you’re, what you’re seeing from everyone else. So we’ve all done it. And I know that women often compare themselves to other women. And we just assume that they have it all under control.

We assume the women that we see at the school gate say have ha I say way I’m not yet a mum. I can imagine. And I know my clients talk about it a lot. We just assume that they turn up and they’re, they’re manicured and they’re small and they have the right clothes on. The [00:04:00] children have done their homework and we can just assume that they have everything under control and their lives are perfect.

So they have the amazing children. They have a great figure and dress sense that intelligent articulate. They spend time in selves, prioritize themselves to have this amazing family. And we all know someone like that that might have triggered, just triggered some comparison in you. Just a little gentle nudge to start with, but who’s to say that they don’t think that that way of you and they’re actually looking at you in that same way and I’m, I’m guilty of it as well.

So I’ve struggled with comparing myself to other women for a lot of my life, not so much now. And it can be really all consuming at times. It can really, it used to hold me in my tracks at times it kept me small. I mean, what’s the point in me doing this when this person is got the promotion that I wanted.

Or what’s the point in me doing this when someone else is my boss’s favorite. And for me, that, that comparison started really young. And I had had an older [00:05:00] brother who I think growing up, I secretly kind of hear a worship. I’m not going to tell him that. Um, and he was really cool and he was very popular and he was this incredible swimmer and he was funny and everyone loved him.

Whereas I was quite quiet. I was a bit of a geek. I loved reading and learning. I worked super hard on. Pretty far from call with my own very unique teenage fashion sense. And then I think as I got older in my teenage years, I compare myself to the other girls and I would always think how pretty they are, how clever they are, how much more popular they were to me and never in an objective way, but just in a direct comparison mode.

But really without any true metrics or ways of comparing. So it sample had a really beautiful best friend growing up and the who’s always followed by boys would always have boys hanging on to every word. And she accepted me just as I was my slight mullet hair cut top and bottom tray trap [00:06:00] brace my NHS specs.

And she didn’t think anything of it, but I thought I was constantly thinking about it. And even at times, I would just compare myself to my cheeky friend who got us into the pub, have a cheeky chat and could talk, talk to any of the boys where I was really tongue tied and quite shy. And at times you even comparing whose boobs are growing the most quickly, um, I think that all came good for me.

And then, but yeah. As I got older, it was, it became more about the bigger things in life and getting married at 24 meant that I was one of the first to get married, but I was also one of the first to get divorced. And I compared my wedding or my marriage to everyone else’s that followed. And then in work as well in my career, when I didn’t get the promise promotion, the comparison spiral would start.

Why, why them? Why not make. And it becomes easy. You start talking these real absolutes. It will never be me. It always happens for someone else. And that just really seals your fate. It just sets you on this really negative path. And more [00:07:00] recently, my wants to be a mum that I’m quite open and honest about.

It’s led me to really compare myself to my friends who are moms and their children are now at secondary schools and sometimes finding it hard to go to christenings or birthday. Um, not about, not wants to be with them, but just what it kind of sets off in me that at 44, this is a journey I want to start.

And, and many of them are like a long way down that journey and that’s with me and that’s not with anything that they’ve ever done. And then I think when you start your own business, Um, it’s just such a sense of comparison, especially on the days when you don’t feel great. Um, when you see all that the others have and not what they’re doing and you see them on social media and they’re huge success, or you assume they are it’s, it’s just constantly there.

And we seem to think the grass is always greener. Yeah, I want it clear that person might be thinking about the same thing about you. And I, I think of comparison a bit like Pringles and I love Pringles. I love Chris and January. I’ve I’ve had a no Chris January, which has been [00:08:00] actually months. I decided with relatively easy, but all my goals.

Yeah, I’ve quite happily eat a whole box anyway, digress. But once you compare, once you pop, you can’t stop and it becomes then the business that you have, the jobs that you have, the promotion that you want, the clothes that you wear, the leanness of your body, the shape of your body, and it goes on and on.

And on your age, how you learn your hair color, do you have gray? And that can lead to that constant checking on Facebook. It can lead to answering the emails when you know, that actually should be at home. It can then be just being distracting meetings. Like who’s, who’s talking most today. Who’s getting the most attention and yeah, social media being drawn into that scrolling just that endless scrolling.

And it can take that pleasure from the day-to-day life. And that friend that you love, but it seems to be complete control time. Maybe you don’t want to spend time with them and it steals your joy. It makes you seem less of feel less, uh, feeds the dark and what you don’t [00:09:00] like about yourself. And it dampens down the light and all the brilliance that you have.

But let’s start with really just, that’s kind of my story about comparison and I’d love to hear as well. But what I hear from my clients is at times when you’re not where you want to be at times when you’re, maybe over-giving and you’re just spending so much time focused on work work becomes your priority that you naturally start to compare.

And comparison within the corporate world, you almost set up for competition. So if you think of end of year reviews, when you go into them, it might already be a score. You might already be put into a system at a certain score. And that is a direct comparison with. Peers. And there’s no getting away from that.

And that leads onto who’s promoted. Who’s moving. I remember in corporate world that we used to do whole days that were assessment centers and we’d go away. And you’re literally on that day, you have a mentor that is watching you for the whole day. And they take notes on you and they score you for different things.

And then what comes out of that is a [00:10:00] direct comparison. So corporate world is very much leading into and just generates that concept of competition with other people. And I need to be, you know, more visible. I need to do more. I need to demonstrate more. Um, so if you’re feeling like that in the corporate world, it’s perfectly natural.

It’s perfectly normal. It’s it’s human behavior. And if we go into the nearest sites behind, this is really interesting when you get to it, because the neuroscience is that it’s a part of human behavior to compare. So we have a part of our brain is three different areas of our brain. I’ll go into them in the neuroscience mini series that I’m going to do.

We have different food, different areas of our brain that have been three different stages of evolution. And the second stage that part of our brain is the social part of our brain. So. That part of the brain just constantly scans the environment. It looks for evidence to see where we fit in the social hierarchy to know that we’re part of a group to know that we’re safe.

So it looks for just positive, [00:11:00] positive reinforcement that we’re part of a group and that we’re accepted and that where we sit within this social hierarchy and that part of the brain is the mammalian part of the brain. And that is purely driven by that looking at where we fit socially. So, if you go back to the cave, bam, cave women’s homes, this was from when to be part of a group you were more like to survive.

And what is really interesting is that it’s proportion, that part of the brain is proportionally bigger and women. So what it means is that women are more focused on other people, more focused on worrying about what people are saying about us and the, he said, and the, she said, and I think. And reading between the lines of emails and comments and statements, because we are more, that part of the brain is bigger.

So it drives us harder. Whereas for men they’re more. Driven by the animal part of the brain and then will driven by immediate responses and reactions. So just to put that into context, women are effectively hardwired compare and to really think about [00:12:00] analyze what they see in and create evidence or.

Just this social hierarchy and comparison is a huge part of that. So if you’re someone that can pass is perfectly natural, it’s perfectly normal. Don’t beat yourself up for it, but create that awareness of it. And then start to think of how is your relationship with comparison. That is a good thing and a feel good thing for you or not a feel good thing, and the word comparison itself.

So the word, the etymology and the history behind the word is actually it’s, it comes from. A series of words around being likened to, or equal to, or on a par with or together with, and that word together with, yeah, it’s so decisive, it’s so negative for so many. And actually there was a lot of research psychology research done into comparison, and there was a particular psychologist called Liam.

Festinger. Really he, he created this idea that comparison was really the assessment based on comparing [00:13:00] elements of you or your behavior or performance. And he really looked at it in two different ways, which I think are really, really helpful and really, really powerful. And those two different ways is you can have an awkward comparison.

So almost when you assess yourself against the peer in a particular meeting and you immediately think of someone who’s done really well, or you think they’ve performed particularly well in that meeting. And you think that you haven’t performed quite as well. And at first you might be a bit hard on yourself.

You might be a bit self critical. But you might also realize there’s things you can learn from them. You might also think this slightly different ways. You can do things and try things on to actually feel like you have that same impact in the next meeting. And that’s a awkward motivation. It’s an awkward social comparison.

It makes you more motivated, prove on your own abilities. Then on the flip side of that, there’s downward comparison. And if you take that [00:14:00] same context and you’re observing your peers skills and impact in that meeting, you feel better about your own abilities, because you’re actually thinking that you’ve done better than them and your performance is much, much better.

And some comparisons might make you feel inadequate and less likely to pursue a goal while others will give you confidence to help build your self esteem. So it’s, it’s almost playing to what we feel that we need in that. And it’s that judgment of ourselves versus that judgment of others. So what’s the impact of comparison for women at the top.

The comparison can be really quite destructive in a lot of ways, it can steal your joy, but it can also do much more and it can really destroy the women at the topic. It destroy the confidence and self-belief, but I actually think it’s even deeper than. So when you comparing, when you’re living at that more superficial level, looking out everyone else, you can potentially you’re belittling your own achievements.

So if you’re comparing, you’re [00:15:00] taking away from what you’ve done and what you’ve achieved and what you’ve delivered. And when, if you put that a super simply, it will never be good enough. The new job isn’t enough. If you can pay your salary to your best friend, that’s been in a more senior role for a long time.

It’s just belittling your own achievements by always looking out rather than thinking what feels good to you. Comparison to say, steals time and energy. So it takes your time and energy to compare and you can get really caught in a downward spiral that just really sinks you further and further down and really starts to affect yourself stress in yourself, confidence.

Whereas you could be putting that energy into really knowing who you are and what you want. And. Measuring against where you are a year ago, instead of just looking externally and comparing with someone that’s further on that journey. Another element of comparison, it can go on and on, so it can start with the smaller things, but it can end with a huge thing.

So it could start off with just met for me growing up, my best friend just naturally could talk to boys really easily. I felt quite [00:16:00] awkward. Um, and it can add to something about just feeling really low about your marriage. If you compare it to other. And it can go on and you can get really caught in a spiral and a real, just, it’s never enough because you’re always comparing externally comparison might be based on what you perceive and not the actual truth.

So you do not know what is happening in someone else’s life. You don’t know what’s happening in their career. You just see, um, the social media channels. You just see what they want to share. You just see the showreel, you don’t see the truth behind it. Um, people select what they share. They choose how they show up at work.

They won’t share the Lowe’s so much as they do the highs. So just don’t take the truth as the absolute. It’s not to call anyone alive, not at all, but we all want to present the more positive we want to use social media as a way of just showing what a great life or that we have. Just, it’s a natural social part of human part of our brain comparison does not give any happiness or pleasure.

So. What positive motions [00:17:00] come from comparison. When we’re looking at externally other people, if you feel other women are further ahead of you in their career, if you feel someone’s got the promotion over you, you just feel down, you just criticize, you just beat yourself up. If you feel that are behind you, you just feel petty and sorry for them.

So comparison does not give any happiness or pleasure, so really become aware of that and choose how you spend time comparisons based on feeling not too. Um, what is the metric in comparing, you know, how do you compare happiness? How do you compare how sys, how your marriage feels for you? What car you drive?

Holiday destination. You’re not comparing apples and apples because one person’s dream life, their house, their holidays, their career could be at of a person’s nightmare. So you’re not comparing the same with same and actually your life is completely subjective based on what you want. So if you’re comparing with other people you’re not [00:18:00] comparing what supports it to you.

And finally, I think this is the most important one. It does not serve anyone to get pads. So, if we’re comparing with other women and pin ourselves down, we just create a more division. We’re just being more divisive. We’re not coming together. And actually a huge part of the work that I want to do is just really create communities of women in the organizations I run programs for so they can support each other so they can have somewhere really safe to go and talk about the challenges that they feel that they face.

And really if we’re comparing ourselves and putting ourselves down and beating ourselves up, That energy is just one of division and one of being divisive rather than coming together. Like I said, who’s to say that they’re not looking at you thinking exactly the same thing and just being really inspired by you and really the more that you know, who you are and what you want, you create that really.

Absolute prediction response, and she can really start to step into this your own world and your own bubble of what [00:19:00] you want. And what’s important to you. So how can we start to change the story? What is a better feeling than comparing? So the way I teach and coach and what I take all my clients through my final fire process is really about knowing that.

It’s okay. And to really step into being a senior female leader in your own way and doing that base or knowing who you are inside out back to front, the dark and the light and the gray and everything in between who you are and what you want. And knowing that it’s okay to have your own leadership style, you’re only to ship.

And that’s really based on knowing who you are and what you want and keeping that focus on you. And you might’ve heard this statement, but it’s all about create and stay in your own road. You have your own road of where you want to be in your career, in your life with family, with your brother. And that road is yours.

That’s road is yours to take in any direction that [00:20:00] you want to, and it has it so milestones, it has its own challenges, but it’s yours. And really, I would just really urge you to think of comparing in a different way. And instead of comparing to others, compared to where you were a month ago, compared to where you were a year ago, compared to what you were 10 years ago, I think it would probably blow your mind if you think about that.

No, that it’s okay. Just to strive for progress over comparing to everyone else. So how can you start to really change this? What are the steps that you can take? So, number one is really think about what you have in your life and what you’ve created, and just really step into being grateful for that.

Really start to appreciate it. And. Like I said at the very beginning, rather than live an external, looking at everyone else and comparing living internally and being present in the moment and living your life, not in that superficial way, but living truly and deeply and knowing, especially for women at the top, so focused on everyone else and looking after them.[00:21:00]

Supporting their team. It’s not often that we just stop and think, wow. I can’t believe where I am. I’m so grateful. I’m so my heart is so full. So really just think about pressing that gratitude. There’s a great app that one of my clients use is called happy feed or there’s a five minute journal. That just invites you to write down five things that you’re grateful for, or just practice it in your own mind every morning when you wake up or my partner, I, for a while we said it, when we really struggled with our mental health last year, it was wet.

Food locked down. We just would say it to each other every day. Tip number two is build your own success bank. So build, build a little bank of your successes and magic moments, especially for work. So. I get my clients to keep a successful do or whatever they wants name it, but it’s where you might have had a compliment from a client.

You might have had a big win in a meeting. You might’ve had some great feedback, any different thing, but put that all into file and keep it somewhere where you can read it. I don’t need to be the huge, big things, but they are achievements that [00:22:00] happy times. And they’re really for you to look back on think damn dammit.

I did that. I’m proud of that. That one is. When you feel triggered, just walk away, it just reset. So don’t need to stay in that thing. You don’t need to stay and spiral more down into that comparison, but just walk away, just take a breath and then just really what’s triggered you. What sent you into that comparison?

Become super aware of it. Just really own your reaction and own the truth. So, for example, for me, if I don’t have the best day, I can sometimes fall into like many of us cabs, Facebook scrolling, comparing that only adds to feeding load. Whereas if I go out for walk the dogs and I take myself away from them potentially of doing that, I feel so much better.

Number four is really just remind yourself that life is a process of creation, not a destination. So this might sound a bit, woo. I am proudly. We were, it’s a big part of the work I do with my clients. I don’t force it upon them, but I just open, open them up to just new ways, different ways of [00:23:00] thinking. But it’s true.

Life is not about getting to the end and it’s not about a tick box and. These 10 things, and then I’m done, uh, we will get to the ad anyway, but it’s really about learning on that journey. It’s about experience. It’s about growing as you go as a leader that you don’t need to compare to create the life that you want to.

You don’t need to compare to be the leader that you want to be, that, you know, you can be, that you already are. So just really think about that. Life is a process of creation, not destiny. It’s not just a tick, less than, than you’re dumb. And then finally just take inspiration. So rather than comparing, think about people around you that have done incredible things.

Just take heart that that’s possible for you. And knowing that there’s already a path laid for you. So if you’re a woman at the top and you want to have that big promotion, if you want to become part of the board, he wants to become an exact director, whatever. It’s just take heart and knowing that other people have already done that there’s already a present.

There’s always [00:24:00] a part there’s already a path for you. And instead of comparing and beating yourself up, because you’re not already that you can ask for the help and expertise, you can lean into all their experiences. Which in turn can really save you time, paid money and effort. And if you do compare.

Here’s a simple fail, safe way to do it. Just compare only with you already mentioned this, but strive to be a little bit better each day as a leader, not only for yourself, but also for role modeling for those around you. So your loved ones, but also your peers and your team, and just commit to growing a little bit each day.

So things, little steps that kind of make you. It’s that bigger version of you, that more impactful leader. And when you celebrate those small steps forwards into who you want to be, and think of those womens that you can pair with the ones you put on a pedestal, they still need love, support, and care. And how would it be to ask them how they are to check in with them?

So ask how they did it and to share their [00:25:00] experience. And they might just appreciate that help and love because not everything is how it seems from the outside in the career at work and on Facebook is such show real rather than actually like. And you’re not alone. You’re never alone. And if you do compare, you’re certainly not loaded.

This is something many of my clients struggle with. It’s all too common, especially amongst women and go back to knowing actually it’s just part of your brain makeup. It’s just part of how we’re hardwired as women. We’re actually designed to compare more and think about what people think of us, it’s in our nature.

So that’s everything I wanted to go through. Really. So. Just going back to that quote, start with comparison to fees for joy. Comparing is simply as a brain process, but if you are doing it a lot, it might be living more externally looking at everyone else rather than internally led from the heart, the upward and the downward comparison.

Just think about how, if you’re going into comparison, just which one of those it might be. And then also think about. Those top tips that I shared [00:26:00] just around how to kind of step away from comparing. So knew who you are and what you want. Build your own success bank. Be grateful walkway, ask for help. Life is a process creation, not destination, and find that inspiration and just remember that, that destructive power of comparison.

So that’s everything for today. This is something that you struggle with. I do have availability at the moment for a couple of focus coaching clients. So this is where over fall calls. Scubba we work on a very specific thing and someone has actually recently worked with Neil comparison and it’s been huge, a huge, successful, and transformational for her in really stepping into who she is as a leader.

So if that’s something you’re interested in. Drop me an email or drop me a message or the contact details or in the show notes. And I look forward to speaking to you on the next episode, and I’d love to know, drop me an email and find out, let me know which one of these tips you’ll be working on to help you that comparing.

Thanks for today. Bye[00:27:00]

If I took about really resonates with you and you love what I have to say, and you have moments of flashes of inspiration from the podcast. I would invite you to get in touch, to find out how I can help you. So individually, that can be through my coaching focus program for my VIP program, depending on how you like to learn and what will suit you, or I can help you in your organization to really help the women that you work with across the organization at all different levels.

And at that very senior level to really feel empowered and to know that they can reach the very, the most senior levels in that organization and to give them the. In who they are and the clarity, what they want to be able to get there. And we do that through workshops, do that through leadership programs, and we can do that.

Free consulting work. If you are looking out with any of that, drop me an email nycla@nicholasschoolco.com. The spelling is not the easiest. So [00:28:00] all the details are in the show notes results I get for clients. Clients have been promoted twice in the six months we’ve worked together. They’d been invited to join the board.

They’ve gone from redundancy to being offered three dreams. They’ve gone from being pushed out of an organization to going into a bigger organization and a bigger role with a bigger pay rise and just a quote from a client that I particular. I’ve gone from the pit of despair. When I started working with Nick to just being really happy and she is an incredibly empowered leader.

Now, if you’re not quite ready for that, you can download my overwhelm to on fire guide the details that are in the show notes, but that really helps you everyday to stay in your fire. So it helps you to clear your head. It helps you to come back to what’s important to you, and it helps you to have that most impact and influence every single day.

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