Purpose: To use improv to keep from dismissing your accomplishments
If you find yourself saying “yes, but...” when thinking about how you’ve grown (indicating that you are still comparing), you need to apply the improv technique of using “Yes, and.”
“Yes, but” is the Inner Critic’s way of trying to pull your attention back to your fears. This is just your brain’s attempt to get back to a well-worn neural pathway.
“Yes, and,” however, mutes the Inner Critic by forcing your brain to come up with new ideas and associations. It uses improv to start changing your negative self-talk to positive.
So, when you are thinking about how much you’ve grown over the past several years, replace your “yeah, but” with “yes, and” to shift yourself out of a deficiency mindset that will leave you susceptible to comparing yourself to others.
For example, if you’re thinking, “I should list the triathlon I did 10 years ago,” and your Inner Critic responds with, “Yeah, but you didn’t make a great time and you walked during part of the run,” then change it to this:
“...yes, and I’m so proud that I finished my first triathlon ever!”
Use the approach of “yes, and” to counter the Inner Critic’s attempts to discount your achievements.
Attune: Embrace Your “Onlyness”
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions.”
— Martha Graham, The Life and Work of Martha Graham
What you produce with your creativity can’t be produced or replicated by anyone else. Comparisons focus on the wrong person and block the expression of your unique brilliance. The Martha Graham quote above practically makes me want to stand up and testify. Ya-uuussss! What you bring forth into the world can only come through you. Amen!
To break away from comparing, I encourage you to acknowledge what author, speaker, and innovation strategist Nilofer Merchant has coined your “Onlyness”: “the space in which only you can stand.”10 Tuning into your Onlyness means truly understanding and appreciating that you are a singular combination, a totality of talents, experiences, and wisdom that no one else in the world has.
Embracing your Onlyness is a powerful practice: the more you become aware of and appreciate just how incomparable you truly are, the less you will compare yourself to others.
Creative Dose: Determining Distinctiveness
Purpose: To discover and own your uniqueness
Recently, I learned the saying, “When you’re in the frame, you can’t see the picture.” I loved how apropos and timely this discovery was. In the previous chapter, the Creative Dose: Take Inventory got you in touch with your achievements, intrinsic qualities, and successes. But this assessment was all from your perspective. That is your “frame.”
To get a better idea of the things about you that everyone else can see but you can’t (your “picture”), you are going to enlist help from others. Their feedback will to help you to determine your Onlyness.
I’ve adapted this exercise from the process that Nilofer Merchant used to successfully transition from being the founder and CEO of a leading strategy firm to becoming a sought-after international speaker, author, and innovation consultant.11
Step 1: List
Make a list of 5-10 people with whom you have strong professional connections (think mentors, former managers, and colleagues), who know you well, and – most importantly – who will be completely honest with you.
Step 2: Ask
Ask them these questions:
In your opinion, what am I distinctly good at?
What do you think the world would be missing without my contribution to it?
What can you see in me that I cannot see, but that you wish I could see and act upon?
Step 3: Glean
Compile their answers and find the common threads. Use the information to open your eyes to your distinctive qualities that you’ve overlooked or dismissed, and as impetus for you to start putting your Onlyness to good use.
Move From Stagnation to Action
“Be so busy improving yourself that you have no time to criticize others.”
— Chetan Bhagat, author
Comparison may have been useful as a tool for personality development when we were younger, but the habit hurts us as we grow older. Think back to the last time you compared yourself to someone. Did it leave you feeling elated and motivated? Or was it the fast track to a pit of despair that you had to work to escape? I’m certain that it was the latter. Research supports this: one study showed that amongst students, comparisons destroyed motivation and severely compromised the students’ ability to achieve goals.12
Here’s the good news: instead of allowing comparisons to monopolize our consciousness and co-opt our feelings, we can get back into the driver’s seat to regain control of our attention. We can change the course of our conscious thoughts and make comparisons serve our needs. By letting go of our preoccupation with the trajectory of other people’s lives, we can transform our envy from a stagnant, blocking force into a powerful motivator for growth.
Let’s look at ways to employ the energy of comparing to propel us forward rather than keeping us mired in comparison quicksand.
Ascertain: Learn from Envy
“Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change.”
— Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
Despite the stigma that envy is a “bad” emotion, it is part of the human experience.13 It’s okay to feel envious at times. But more importantly, envy (like all strong emotions) has the potential to be a great teacher. Just as physical pain alerts you to a problem in your body that needs to be tended to, the mental distress of envy alerts you to a problem in your psyche calling for your attention.
Emotions are messengers. They give us information about how we are responding to our thoughts and experiences. This is easier to accept with positive emotions such as happiness, joy, or euphoria. The challenge comes when we experience strong so-called negative emotions such as anger, sadness, or fear. From an early age, we are taught to suppress or ignore negative feelings and to deal with them later – if at all.
The very essence of emotion is movement: the word emotion originated from words that mean “to set in motion; to move feelings.” The real problem with strong emotions is when we don’t fully acknowledge, feel, and express them — they don’t move. These emotions end up staying past their welcome, building up in our psyches. Then one day a seemingly minor event triggers an overblown reaction, as the emotion finally dynamites its way out.
Sadly, through the practice of denying and suppressing strong emotions, we miss their message and their original purpose gets lost. In contrast, when we acknowledge and feel a strong emotion, two positive things happen. First, the felt and expressed emotion typically quickly diminishes in intensity. Second, we learn something about ourselves from its presence.
Take heed and learn from your envy. By acknowledging this important message from your inner self and acting on it, envy will serve its purpose, helping to form a positive vision for your future.
Creative Dose: What Lies Beneath Your Envy
Purpose: To treat envy as a messenger and learn what it’s trying to teach you
Use the comparison trigger of envy to your advantage to find out what lies beneath it.
One of my favorite sayings is, “You want something because it wants you.” Envy can be a messenger to not only tell us of our innermost desires, but also p
rovide clues to our highest potential.
Instead of allowing your envy to make you miserable, treat it as a clue leading you on the path to becoming more of who you are.
Think of a person or someone’s circumstance that you have envy towards.
Reflect upon these questions, and then write down your answers in your journal or on paper:
What is your envy trying to tell you? Is there is something missing in your life that it’s time for you to start working toward?
What does your envy have to teach you about the deep aspirations of your soul?
For example, if you are thinking comparison thoughts such as, “I’ll never be an award-winning dev/designer/CEO like my colleague,” then look at that thought as a message. Maybe deep down inside, you actually want to be recognized for your work. Capture what you’ve discovered.
My envy tells me that I really want to:__________________________________
If that’s what you truly deeply desire, there’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t have it, or at the very least, put forth effort towards it. See your envy, then, as a call to action.
If this is a deep desire, then how can you make it manifest? Maybe you need to enter yourself into a contest, start writing articles for popular websites or speaking to raise your visible profile, or have people start to recommend you for awards. Write some ideas on how you can start moving in the direction of achieving your desire.
Ideas on steps I can take to achieve my desire:
1. ____________________________
2. ____________________________
3. ____________________________
Don’t just stop at three, keep going until you exhaust all of your ideas.
In essence, envy may be lighting a path for you towards the life that you actually want to live. Follow the breadcrumb trail to discover the deeper truth that your envy is trying to communicate.
Admire: Transform Envy
“When emulation leads us to strive for self-elevation by merit alone, and not by belittling another, then it is one of the grandest possible incentives to action.”
— Samuel Johnson, author and poet
We tend to overestimate the positivity in the lives of others, but that’s because most people will only share the positive.14 In other words, what we get from people – what we see and what they share – is an incomplete picture. What we see are people’s highlight reels.15 We don’t see anything behind the scenes: the bloopers, the struggles, and the failures. We don’t know the full truth. Keep this in mind: when you compare yourself to others, you’re comparing yourself against incomplete or even inaccurate information: an idealized version of the other person. Comparisons are selective, exaggerated, and unreal.
The striking thing in my keynotes, talks, and workshops is the universality of the feeling of self-doubt and the internal voice of chastisement. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: to have an Inner Critic is to be human. Feelings of inadequacy and disappointment are shared by everyone. When we feel ashamed and less than, we don’t focus on what we have in common with others.16
While it may seem like there are certain people who have everything together on the exterior level, know that inside they are wrestling with their own inner critical voices as well: their own special version of mistaken beliefs and distorted thinking about themselves. The Inner Critic is universal. We all – every single one of us – have one. Some of our Inner Critics may be more vitriolic than others, but they all have left their hurtful imprint upon our psyches. And it’s this element of commonality that also helps us to be more compassionate to ourselves: we actually all belong. We are all suffering from similar mental wounds. We are all trying to work it out, trying collectively trying to figure out this thing called Life. The next time you feel particularly put upon by self-critical thinking and mired down by harshly judging or criticizing yourself and comparing yourself to others, remember that other people are feeling similarly. You’re not the only one. Give yourself a pass, and extend yourself some kindness for being human.
The alternative to Comparison Syndrome is to look at the success of others with approval, pleasure, and wonder. From this new standpoint, we can use their success as an impetus for admiration, emulation, and celebration.
Creative Dose: A Comparison Syndrome Intervention
Purpose: To prevent you from going into a comparison spiral
If you find yourself going down the comparison rabbit-hole, stop and ask yourself these questions:
Q: Do I have all of the information about these people and how they got to this point?
A: No, I don’t.
Q: Is comparing my insides to their outsides really fair?
A: No, it’s not.
Q: Is it a waste of my brainpower and time to continue comparing myself to them?
A: Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.
Repeat as needed.
Creative Dose: To Admiration and Beyond
Purpose: To move from envy, to emulation, to celebration
Despite knowing that what we see on the surface of a person’s life isn’t the full story, with an ingrained comparison habit, we still allow the outward success of others to adversely affect us.
Here are four methods that you can employ either individually or in combination to transform the success of others into a source of inspiration and motivation.
Option 1: Acknowledge
Give the person the same consideration that you’d like for yourself. Recognize and acknowledge all of the incredibly hard work that invariably has gone on behind the scenes of their highlight reel: their aggravations, setbacks, failures, and yes, even dealing with their own Inner Critic.
Instead of sitting in envy, which hurts you on multiple levels (but doesn’t affect the person at all unless you interact with them regularly and your envy sours the dynamic of the interaction), use a mindful approach to shift your thinking. Activate your empathy and extend compassion towards what the person went through to get where they are.
Option 2: Differentiate
Separate yourself from the other person by focusing on the differences between you and her or him, rather than the similarities. Examine the situation itself and find differences as well. 17
You’ll most likely find that you’ve been comparing apples to oranges.
You can use this framework to help you think through this.
The person I envy is _______________, and I am
______________________________.
The person I envy had _______________, and I had
______________________________.
The person I envy does _______________work, and I do ______________________________work.
Be conscious of focusing on de facto differences, rather than leaning towards listing what advantages you believe that this person has over you.
Option 3: Emulate
To transform envy into a motivating force that will help you attain your goals, learn from another’s trajectory.
Look at the people that you envy. Instead of a “role model,” which makes what a person has accomplished feel unobtainable, make someone your “Opportunity Model”: someone who is showing you that the opportunity is available for you to achieve,18 as well as a potential method to do so.
Learn from your Opportunity Model’s achievements.
What steps has this person taken to achieve their success?
How can you emulate what she or he has done to achieve success for yourself?
Focus on her or his process and steps to success.
Are there parts of the process that you can replicate? What are they?
Think about the qualities that your Opportunity Model has.
How can you learn from the qualities that s/he exhibits?
Here is a framework to help you out:
My Opportunity Model is: ____________________.
She/He is successful at: ____________________.
She/He achieved success by: ____________________.
My Opportunity Model has these qualities that contributed to this person’s success: ____________________.
My Opportunity Model has these qualities that I admire:
____________________
Take the responses from all of these questions, and start devising how you can take their strategies and combine them into an even better approach that is uniquely tailored to you, your talents, skills, and ambitions.19
You can use this framework:
It is my intention to be successful at:
____________________
Here are ideas on how I can start:
____________________
Here are the qualities I have that will contribute to my success:
____________________
Here are the qualities that I will develop to accelerate my success:
____________________
Option 4: Celebrate
Another’s success does not diminish what we are doing and who we are. Remind yourself that the success of others does not reflect on you and does not take away from you. Instead of comparison, find inspiration. Transform your envy into congratulations and celebrate another’s success.
Here are some ways you can celebrate someone’s success:
Send them a congratulations card
Send them a congratulations gift
Post about their achievement on social media
Recommend them for a podcast or interview
Recommend their work to other people
Bonus Action: Go one step farther and applaud people’s efforts instead of their achievements, for an accomplishment is merely the product of many smaller tasks. Doing this for others gives you a template for how to cheer yourself on and celebrate your own successes, and will make you open to receiving it from others.
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