September 12, 2025 • 29 mins
Episode 49: Ever catch yourself scrolling through social media and suddenly feel… less than? You’re not alone. In this episode of Mind Your Midlife, we dig into why so many women over 40 and 50 fall into the comparison trap and how to break free so you can feel more joy, confidence, and fulfillment in your own life.
This is your official permission slip to stop following the accounts that make you feel down or bad.
I share what’s really happening in your brain when you compare yourself to others, why social media makes this so much worse, and the mindset shifts that can help you feel good in your own skin again. You’ll also hear why authentic relationships and intentional choices are key to building the kind of self confidence that no Instagram highlight reel can shake.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN:
✔ Why comparison feels so natural for midlife women—and how your brain is wired for it
✔ How social media highlights distort your sense of reality
✔ The simple questions you can ask yourself to shift out of comparison and into confidence
✔ Why community and supportive relationships are the best antidote to comparison
✔ How to set powerful intentions before logging onto social media or walking into a group setting
🎯 OMG Moment: Your worth isn’t found in someone else’s highlight reel—it’s built by knowing who you are and what truly matters to you.
Take Action
Notice your triggers. The next time you catch yourself feeling worse after scrolling, jot down what you were looking at and how it made you feel. With awareness comes power—you’ll start to see the patterns and know exactly what to avoid or curate in your feed.
Grab the free Story Cycle resource and start using it.
Why This Episode Matters
Midlife isn’t a time for constant comparison—it’s the time to create your own version of happiness and success. By learning how to spot comparison for what it is, you’ll build the mindset shift that keeps you grounded, joyful, and confident.
🎧 Hit follow now so you don’t miss next week’s episode, where I sit down with a Physician’s Assistant who specializes in hormone health for midlife women.
Subscribe to bonus episodes at cherylpfischer.com/bonusepisodes.
🌸 Liked this episode? Share it with fellow Gen X women navigating hormone balance, an empty nest, and/or self-confidence!
🫶 Love this show? Leave a review to help more women over 50 find us.
💡Want menopause support, mindset shifts, or support with midlife transitions?
- Build a mindset for success with the private bonus episodes!
- Book a free Mindset Coaching / Intro Call: cherylpfischer.com/coaching
Let’s talk midlife body positivity, self-talk, and redefining aging for women — without the “midlife crisis” narrative. Every week I'm adding new success strategies for midlife women.
Connect with Cheryl, Midlife Coach: Instagram | LinkedIn | Website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cheryl Fischer (00:00):
Okay, gen X, that's us.
We're in midlife, I think we'rerocking it, but we didn't grow
up with social media, right.
We grew up with trapper keepersand pen and paper and calling
on the phone when even yourparents might answer the phone
(00:27):
the phone when even your parentsmight answer the phone.
We didn't grow up with it, butwe have embraced it.
I feel like our generation hasreally embraced everything that
has happened in our lifetime,which is just tremendous
technological change, and that'sgreat that we've embraced
social media and we've embracedthis whole life online.
As long as you are not allowingit to make you feel bad, so
(00:52):
let's talk about it.
Welcome to Mind your Midlife,your go-to resource for
confidence and success, onethought at a time.
Unlike most advice out there,we believe that simply telling
you to believe in yourself orchange your habits isn't enough
to wake up excited about life orfeel truly confident in your
(01:14):
body.
Each week, you'll gainactionable strategies and oh my
goodness powerful insights tostop feeling stuck and start
loving your midlife.
This is the Mind your MidlifePodcast.
I enjoy social media.
I like to see what my friendsand family are up to.
(01:36):
I like the fact that I actuallyam sort of I'm using air quotes
in touch with people from highschool and college and grad
school that you know I might notreally have ever kept in touch
with them otherwise.
I like that.
I like motivational quotes.
I like comedy.
I am a huge, huge, huge fan.
(01:58):
Maybe you heard the comedyepisode a week or two ago with
Lynn Harris, but I'm a huge fanof stand-up comedy, of laughing
in general, so I look for thaton my social media.
I like cute animals, especiallyguinea pigs.
I've had two guinea pigs in mylife and I love them.
So I love to look at all ofthat on social media and I hope
(02:21):
you have things that you enjoy.
But sometimes I feel my moodstarting to change.
When I open up social media andI will not call out any one
particular platform because itabsolutely can happen on any of
(02:41):
them.
It doesn't matter whether it'sInstagram, facebook, tiktok can
happen on any of them.
It doesn't matter whether it'sInstagram, facebook, tiktok,
whatever else.
Those are the only ones comingto mind at the moment.
It doesn't matter, you may beseeing different things, but it
can happen with any of them Ican feel my mood changing and a
(03:02):
lot of times I'll pick up mysocial media when I need a
little break from something thatI'm doing, or maybe I have a
few minutes before somethingelse, or maybe I just want to
see what people are up to, andso I have a quick look and
sometimes that's fine.
But sometimes I start in with acomparison.
(03:22):
Look at how happy they are.
Look at that fun thing they'redoing.
Look at how smart that personis about advertising.
I bet her business must be huge.
I bet it's growing faster.
Look at how great she looks inthat picture.
She, I guess, looks like thatall the time.
(03:43):
Why don't I look like that allthe time?
You hear it.
It comes basically from the ideathat I could never whatever
fill in the blank, because I seesomeone else doing something
and I'm comparing myself and I'mnot measuring up.
(04:05):
In my mind, it's only in mymind, it's only in your mind.
We're comparing ourselves withwhat we see, and this is mostly
social media.
But I don't want to confine usto just that topic.
It could be someone in yourlife that you see at work or
that you see in some othersetting that you compare
(04:29):
yourself to.
Given the information that youhave, I do think social media is
where most of the comparisontrap comes from for us nowadays,
though, and we're going to talkabout why that is, but here's
where this comparison problemcomes from, because, of course
you, you know we're smart women.
You know that you are your ownperson, you know that you are
(04:52):
fearfully and wonderfully made,you know that there is no reason
you need to be the same asanyone else.
But just knowing that factuallydoesn't mean that that's how
we're acting, and it doesn'tmean that that's what our
subconscious brain is workingfrom.
There's probably other stuffhidden in there.
(05:12):
Your brain wants to be safe,and thank goodness I mean our
brains do some amazing workevery single day to keep us safe
.
First of all, subconsciously,our brains are running.
All our body processes rightthe blood is flowing, the heart
is beating, all the things arehappening, we're breathing in
(05:36):
and out.
Thank goodness we don't have toactively think about all of
that and then the brain is alsofiltering the input in your
environment 24 hours a daythings that you would just never
(05:56):
get anywhere if you had toprocess all of this.
So right now, I'm sitting in myoffice at my house, and there's
a window to my side.
There's windows behind me,there's pictures on the wall,
there are papers on the desk andother things around the room,
there's funny pillows on thesofa behind me, there's just all
(06:18):
sorts of stuff going on, and myreticular activating system in
my brain is filtering throughall of that and picking out the
things that I need to payattention to, and typically it's
picking out the things thatmaybe are relevant to what I'm
doing right now.
So I'm noticing the light andthe computer and the recording
(06:39):
and not really anything else.
Or it's picking out things thatmatch with what I believe about
the world.
It's not going to notice thethings that don't make as much
sense to it or that don't matchwith what I know about the world
.
So our brains want us to beable to fit in and our brains
(07:03):
want us to be able to movethrough life in a safe manner,
and that's all good until itkind of gets extreme.
So back when we were kids whichwas, I imagine, in the 70s or
80s for most of us we probablygot very good as kids and as
(07:24):
teens and maybe in college, atscanning our environments, at
walking into a situation andbeing able to see who is safe,
what is safe, maybe who I am notso sure about who do I want to
meet, who do I want to hang outwith what looks fun?
(07:44):
Sure about who do I want tomeet, who do I want to hang out
with what looks fun?
We can tell that pretty quicklywhen we're in an environment
where we are personally withpeople.
We can walk up to a restaurantand decide whether we want to
eat there.
We can walk into a gathering offriends and decide who we want
to talk to, and we're alsogetting a full picture of those
(08:05):
people.
Obviously, we don't know theirdeep, dark secrets.
There's always stuff abouteveryone's life that we don't
know.
Hence, please always be kind,but hopefully you see my point
we get almost like a 3D picture,whereas if we're looking online
, we're getting just a flat 2Dpicture of people.
(08:29):
And we're trying, and ourbrains are trying, to do this.
We're trying to go online andwe're trying to identify who is
safe, what is safe, who do Iwant to meet or hang out with?
What looks fun, who looks fun?
And we're trying to do thatwith two dimensional information
(08:52):
not the full, whole picture,body, whole person
three-dimensional information,and it might work sometimes.
We definitely I've definitelymet people.
I feel the need to do airquotes.
There too, met people onlinewho've become great connections.
(09:12):
I can think of people who arecoaches just like me.
I can think of people who'vebeen on the podcast that I
really connected with.
I can think of kind of friends,of friends that I've connected
with.
It does happen that you meetpeople online and you get to
know them.
So I'm not saying we can't dothat, but I'm saying we're not
(09:33):
seeing the full picture, we'renot seeing the whole person.
So it's not quite so easy tokind of get a vibe from someone
and just know I'm seeing thisperson in their real habitat, as
their real self.
What do I mean by it's not thewhole person.
I think now we know this right.
(09:53):
Social media has been around fora long time.
We know that all of us, for themost part, are putting our
highlight reels I'm going tocall it on social media.
We're putting the fun trip andthe smiley picture and the
picture that makes us look goodand the exciting news about
(10:15):
whatever it is.
That's what we're putting onsocial media.
We're putting the inspirationalquote.
I do this too.
That's what we're all doing and, quite frankly, if that wasn't
what we were all doing, I don'tknow how much we would like it.
Imagine if you opened up asocial media app and you saw
(10:37):
everything was sad, complaining,negative, annoying.
Well, you wouldn't want to bethere, and I mean, we get that
way sometimes when we go throughrough periods, but you wouldn't
want to be there.
If that's what everybody wasdoing, why would you do that to
yourself?
So it makes sense that we'resharing the happy things, and I
(11:37):
love the fact that we get tocelebrate with people and we get
to enjoy with people, and whenpeople share something sad, we
get to help them.
That's great too.
For the most part, though, we'reseeing the moment that someone
picked that shows them in theirbest light and shows the best
angle to take a camera angle,example and shows the best piece
(11:59):
of news, and behind that, theycould be sad about something
else, and we don't know.
I could tell you I am, and Iwouldn't necessarily think you
would know.
So, for example, last year onInstagram if we're not connected
on Instagram, find me at CherylP Fisher so last year, one of
the most viewed reels on myInstagram was one that I just
(12:22):
kind of did while I was sittingon my sofa one day, and I put
the camera way down low andaimed it up at myself, so you
can imagine the chin problemsthat were going on there.
My face looked all distorted.
And then I lifted it up and Iheld it high, because, ladies, a
(12:43):
high angle is good.
And I did that all in one reeland my face went from looking
weird and gross to looking good,if I do say so myself.
And I said it's all aboutperspective, and I think that
resonated with people for tworeasons.
Number one it's a way toremember that the perspective we
(13:06):
look at something from is goingto color how we evaluate it and
what we think.
But number two, we are all soself-conscious about pictures of
ourselves when it comes tosocial media, and this is one of
the biggest places we fall intothe comparison trap.
So if you see a picture of youand your chin looks gross, or
your eyes are squinty or yourhair is sticking out or whatever
(13:30):
number one I can almostguarantee you that no one else
thinks that your chin does notlook gross, your hair is not
weirdly sticking out and youreyes don't look weird.
But number two, it's just theangle.
It's just the angle.
Anything that's closest to thecamera gets bigger.
Farther away from the camera,it gets smaller.
(13:51):
That's when you take a 3Dperson and make them flat.
That's what happens.
So when we know how to get agood angle, then we love our
pictures amazingly enough.
But no person in your life looksperfect all the time, always
says inspiring things and alwayshas tons of fun.
(14:12):
No person, not me, probably notyou, no person.
We all have challenges.
We all have our great hair daysand our not as great hair days.
We all have stuff right.
But as we look at all of thesehighlight reels, if we're not
(14:33):
careful, look at all of thesehighlight reels, if we're not
careful, because of therepetition over and over and
over, of seeing amazing, amazing, gorgeous, beautiful, amazing,
gorgeous, beautiful, we'restarting to create beliefs in
our subconscious minds thatpeople do have that all the time
and that creates a should thatwe should have that all the time
(14:54):
and that creates a should thatwe should have that all the time
Great hair, great clothes,great figure, great job, great
success, great family, greatfriends, great fun, great travel
Because by repetition, we'reseeing it all the time.
The danger is we start tobelieve that that is how life is
(15:15):
and once that belief starts tosink in, then our brains are
looking for our lives to be likethat as well Great all the time
.
And if you don't see youroutside world matching with that
, you don't see yourself lookinggreat, feeling great, dressing
(15:36):
great, having great fun, gettingpromotions, winning this,
getting the money, whatever,whatever.
If you don't see that evidencein your actual, real, 3d life,
that everything is great all thetime, then you are going to get
really upset with yourself.
And it's not fair because itwasn't true to begin with.
(15:57):
So when we catch ourselvessaying, well, why do I not look
perfect?
Or why can't I come up withsomething to post that's
inspiring and everybody likes it?
Or why don't I get to go ontrips like that?
Or why isn't my family thathappy?
Why don't I get to go on tripslike that?
Or why isn't my family thathappy?
(16:18):
We're judging ourselves, andwe're judging ourselves based on
a comparison that is not real.
And when we ask why can't I?
The secondary problem,unfortunately, is that our brain
is going to look for the answer.
When you ask a question likethat, your brain's going to go
try to find an answer.
It's going to try to findevidence in your life, evidence
(16:39):
in the world that helps you toanswer the question.
Your brain does not like to bewrong and it does not like to be
stumped.
So if I go around all the timesaying why don't I have these
great friends, why don't I getto do fun things, your brain is
going to find you an answer.
Why you don't Think about thatfor a minute.
(16:59):
It's probably not an answerthat you want, so we're going to
talk about switching thatquestion.
All of this comes from the ideathat your brain is keeping you
safe, not the idea this isreally happening.
And safety comes from fittingin.
Safety comes from being likeothers.
Safety comes from being in theprimitive group that all kept
(17:24):
each other safe and fed.
So, from the brain'sperspective, it's really
important for us to fit in, butwe can't fit in with a reality
that actually doesn't exist.
So what is the antidote to allthis?
Am I stressing you out?
I'm not trying to.
I'm just trying to make a pointthat this is something we need
to pay attention to.
(17:45):
The antidote to all this isself-trust and self-belief, and
I'm going to give you a few tipsjust to underscore how
important this is, and thenwe're going to go into a lot
more of it over the next fewweeks in Patreon and Substack.
So find Mind your Midlife onPatreon and on Substack and make
sure you have subscribed.
(18:07):
Okay, so easy for me to sayself-trust, self-belief, that's
what you need.
Okay, bye.
How do you do it?
You really want to know yourselfand often we know ourselves
almost in a comparison way, likeI'm as athletic as so-and-so,
(18:31):
but not as so-and-so.
I'm as successful as this one,but not quite as successful as
that one.
My family is as happy as theirfamily, but not apparently as
happy as that family.
Whatever it is, we almost knowourselves by comparison.
We put ourselves on this scalethat we've created and we slot
(18:54):
ourselves in on the scale.
Now, first of all, that scaledoesn't exist and you don't have
the full story on any of thoseother people.
But second of all, that's notreally knowing yourself, because
knowing yourself means knowingwhat you really want, what you
really value, really and trulywhat you value and what you want
(19:18):
, and recognizing how things inyour life make you feel and what
you're telling yourself aboutthose things.
That's creating those feelings.
So this might come from divingmore into your faith and
trusting in that.
It might come from learning howto calm your body and calm your
(19:41):
mind.
You can do that with tapping,you can do that with meditation
and allowing yourself time tothink about what do I really
want?
What actually makes me happy?
Why am I telling myself, forexample, that I look like a
hideous troll compared to allthese other women that I maybe
(20:04):
went to school with and now seeonline looking amazing and
glamorous?
Do I want to be amazing andglamorous or am I happy, being
comfortable and taking care ofmy body appropriately?
I mean, sometimes, what we'recomparing ourselves with we
don't even want if we reallythink about it.
The key is to really thinkabout it.
(20:26):
So a few tips, that's the bigpicture Calm your body, calm
your mind, recognize thethoughts going on in your head,
recognize how things make youfeel, recognize what idea kind
of piques your excitement.
A little bit Doesn't matter ifnobody else is doing it, doesn't
even matter if nobody else isdoing it.
That way, all right.
(20:47):
So then, as we're graduallygetting used to doing that, you
need to give yourself kind ofsome tools to help along the way
.
First of all, if you havesomeone in your life in a
relationship spouse, boyfriend,girlfriend type of relationship
or family, or even very closefriend, if you have someone in
(21:11):
your life that you can talkthrough this with and share
experiences with, that cuts thepower of comparison.
And in fact, I'm going to giveyou some statistics, because
there have been studies done onthis, as you might imagine,
where right now, a lot ofdifferent organizations are
(21:32):
studying social media, studyingits effect on anxiety and
depression on teenagers, and allof this.
So there was an analysis doneand this analysis included it's
what you call a meta-analysis,included over 55,000
participants over a number ofyears to figure out is there a
(21:54):
correlation that is significantat all between online social
comparison and concerns aboutbody image.
And, as you might imagine, yes,there was a significant
correlation.
There was another study tryingto figure out is there a link
(22:15):
between social media comparison,social networking sites, and
depression?
And yes, that was confirmed,there is a link.
Interestingly, a study in Chinafound that, even though some of
these comparisons we make canlead to depression, can lead to
(22:39):
envy, being in a goodrelationship, like I'm saying, a
marriage, a relationship, astrong family relationship, can
buffer the effect, buffer theeffect.
So, gosh, how many times havewe talked on the podcast about
how it's so important to be incommunity?
You might be married I am youmight not be.
You might be in a relationship.
(22:59):
You might have a sister, abrother, a cousin, a parent, a
child, a best friend that givesyou the same benefit.
Being in a good relationship,where they value you and you
value them, buffers this effect.
I don't know if anybody hasfigured out why, but I think we
(23:21):
could guess, couldn't we?
It's because now you're seeinga 3D picture and you see you
have evidence that shows youthat there is at least one
person, and probably more, inyour life who values you.
That cuts the power of all thiscomparison.
So community, please community.
(23:42):
What else can you do?
Notice your triggers.
So I'm not saying not to usesocial media.
We can certainly fall into thecomparison trap in real life.
As I said at the beginning, Ijust think this is mostly what
we're dealing with right now.
If you notice yourself withyour mood kind of going in the
toilet when something you aredoing is starting to make you
(24:06):
feel bad, make a note of it.
Now, this is probably not ajournal that you would really
want to keep for very long, butmaybe for a week or for two
weeks on a note in your phone.
Make a note.
If you've been doing somethingand you catch yourself starting
to feel kind of you know what Imean Bad about yourself, or
(24:32):
depressed or uninspired, whatwere you doing when that started
to happen?
Make a note of it and see ifyou can find a pattern and
figure out what your triggersare, because the more you know
right, if you know what yourtriggers are, you can avoid them
.
You can also curate what you seeon your social media.
(24:54):
This is one of the reasons Ienjoy TikTok, because I have
very carefully scrolled on bystuff I didn't want to see,
liked stuff I did want to see,and it does what I want.
I get a lot of comedy on myTikTok, so it's like a comedy
break, and I'm aware there's allsorts of other stuff there, but
it doesn't show it to me.
I would also say find peoplewho seem more real and authentic
(25:19):
.
Can you really know that forsure?
No, but if you notice themevery now and then, just being
real and not always showing theperfect version, okay, maybe
that's good.
Reality over glam.
And the other thing that hasreally helped me and I'm not
always great about this is toset an intention before I go on
(25:40):
social media, or before I gointo a group event, or before I
go to a networking event All ofthose places are where
comparison might start to happenI set an intention.
What am I doing there?
Am I looking for connection?
Am I looking for inspiration?
Am I looking to laugh or justkind of take a break?
Because if I've decided thatahead of time and again social
(26:04):
media or real life then mybrain's like all right, this is
what we're looking for and it'snot going to pay attention as
much to the other stuff.
Try it.
Setting an intention before youwalk into a situation online or
in real life, is powerful.
Okay, so oftentimes thecomparison trap is particularly
(26:25):
potent, particularly powerfulwhen something is going on in
our lives that is either new oris really really tough.
Some emotional upheaval isgoing on and that sends us down
the path of looking at otherpeople and asking why not?
So I promised you I'd come backto that.
(26:45):
We need to figure out how to askour brains different questions.
Maybe it's how can I feelbetter?
What can I do right now to moveforward?
How might this get better?
Instead of there's plenty morequestions we can think of, but
instead of why don't I have that?
Why can't I do that?
(27:06):
Do you see the difference?
The answer to those firstquestions maybe your brain, once
you calm it down, is going tocome up with some great ideas.
They often do.
The second group of questionsis just going to tell us why we
stink, and we don't needanything more to tell us that we
do that enough.
So think about the questionsyou're asking yourself.
(27:28):
And this is just pausing,catching your emotions, catching
your thoughts, just like I helpyou to do in the story cycle.
So grab the story cycleresource if you don't already
have it.
Cherylpfishercom.
Slash story cycle.
Come and join us in thecollective Subscribe on
Patreoncom.
Slash MindYourMidlife orMindYourMid midlife dot substack
(27:51):
dot com.
Same resources.
This month in September, I amdoing a live video series for
paid Patreon and Substacksubscribers on what to do when
your job situation has suddenlychanged.
So many people have asked me todo this, so that's coming soon
(28:12):
this month.
Make sure you're in there sothat you can grab it, because
talk about a time when you couldfall into the comparison trap.
Why me?
Why, like they, have this greatjob?
I'm a smart person.
I don't understand all thatkind of stuff, so I'm going to
help you in there with tappingto calm down, to figure out how
(28:33):
to move forward.
We're going to go through awhole series on what to do and
make sure you've hit the followbutton, because the next episode
of Mind your Midlife.
I have a physician's assistantjoining me to talk to us about
hormone health in midlife.
She works specifically withmidlife women about this exact
(28:54):
issue and does not affect all ofus, so I'll see you then.
In the meantime, slow down,notice what's going on around
you, what's going on in yourhead, and let's create something
amazing.
Okay, gen X, that's us.
We're in midlife, I think we'rerocking it, but we didn't grow
up with social media, right.
We grew up with trapper keepersand pen and paper and calling
on the phone when even yourparents might answer the phone
(00:27):
the phone when even your parentsmight answer the phone.
We didn't grow up with it, butwe have embraced it.
I feel like our generation hasreally embraced everything that
has happened in our lifetime,which is just tremendous
technological change, and that'sgreat that we've embraced
social media and we've embracedthis whole life online.
As long as you are not allowingit to make you feel bad, so
(00:52):
let's talk about it.
Welcome to Mind your Midlife,your go-to resource for
confidence and success, onethought at a time.
Unlike most advice out there,we believe that simply telling
you to believe in yourself orchange your habits isn't enough
to wake up excited about life orfeel truly confident in your
(01:14):
body.
Each week, you'll gainactionable strategies and oh my
goodness powerful insights tostop feeling stuck and start
loving your midlife.
This is the Mind your MidlifePodcast.
I enjoy social media.
I like to see what my friendsand family are up to.
(01:36):
I like the fact that I actuallyam sort of I'm using air quotes
in touch with people from highschool and college and grad
school that you know I might notreally have ever kept in touch
with them otherwise.
I like that.
I like motivational quotes.
I like comedy.
I am a huge, huge, huge fan.
(01:58):
Maybe you heard the comedyepisode a week or two ago with
Lynn Harris, but I'm a huge fanof stand-up comedy, of laughing
in general, so I look for thaton my social media.
I like cute animals, especiallyguinea pigs.
I've had two guinea pigs in mylife and I love them.
So I love to look at all ofthat on social media and I hope
(02:21):
you have things that you enjoy.
But sometimes I feel my moodstarting to change.
When I open up social media andI will not call out any one
particular platform because itabsolutely can happen on any of
(02:41):
them.
It doesn't matter whether it'sInstagram, facebook, tiktok can
happen on any of them.
It doesn't matter whether it'sInstagram, facebook, tiktok,
whatever else.
Those are the only ones comingto mind at the moment.
It doesn't matter, you may beseeing different things, but it
can happen with any of them Ican feel my mood changing and a
(03:02):
lot of times I'll pick up mysocial media when I need a
little break from something thatI'm doing, or maybe I have a
few minutes before somethingelse, or maybe I just want to
see what people are up to, andso I have a quick look and
sometimes that's fine.
But sometimes I start in with acomparison.
(03:22):
Look at how happy they are.
Look at that fun thing they'redoing.
Look at how smart that personis about advertising.
I bet her business must be huge.
I bet it's growing faster.
Look at how great she looks inthat picture.
She, I guess, looks like thatall the time.
(03:43):
Why don't I look like that allthe time?
You hear it.
It comes basically from the ideathat I could never whatever
fill in the blank, because I seesomeone else doing something
and I'm comparing myself and I'mnot measuring up.
(04:05):
In my mind, it's only in mymind, it's only in your mind.
We're comparing ourselves withwhat we see, and this is mostly
social media.
But I don't want to confine usto just that topic.
It could be someone in yourlife that you see at work or
that you see in some othersetting that you compare
(04:29):
yourself to.
Given the information that youhave, I do think social media is
where most of the comparisontrap comes from for us nowadays,
though, and we're going to talkabout why that is, but here's
where this comparison problemcomes from, because, of course
you, you know we're smart women.
You know that you are your ownperson, you know that you are
(04:52):
fearfully and wonderfully made,you know that there is no reason
you need to be the same asanyone else.
But just knowing that factuallydoesn't mean that that's how
we're acting, and it doesn'tmean that that's what our
subconscious brain is workingfrom.
There's probably other stuffhidden in there.
(05:12):
Your brain wants to be safe,and thank goodness I mean our
brains do some amazing workevery single day to keep us safe
.
First of all, subconsciously,our brains are running.
All our body processes rightthe blood is flowing, the heart
is beating, all the things arehappening, we're breathing in
(05:36):
and out.
Thank goodness we don't have toactively think about all of
that and then the brain is alsofiltering the input in your
environment 24 hours a daythings that you would just never
(05:56):
get anywhere if you had toprocess all of this.
So right now, I'm sitting in myoffice at my house, and there's
a window to my side.
There's windows behind me,there's pictures on the wall,
there are papers on the desk andother things around the room,
there's funny pillows on thesofa behind me, there's just all
(06:18):
sorts of stuff going on, and myreticular activating system in
my brain is filtering throughall of that and picking out the
things that I need to payattention to, and typically it's
picking out the things thatmaybe are relevant to what I'm
doing right now.
So I'm noticing the light andthe computer and the recording
(06:39):
and not really anything else.
Or it's picking out things thatmatch with what I believe about
the world.
It's not going to notice thethings that don't make as much
sense to it or that don't matchwith what I know about the world
.
So our brains want us to beable to fit in and our brains
(07:03):
want us to be able to movethrough life in a safe manner,
and that's all good until itkind of gets extreme.
So back when we were kids whichwas, I imagine, in the 70s or
80s for most of us we probablygot very good as kids and as
(07:24):
teens and maybe in college, atscanning our environments, at
walking into a situation andbeing able to see who is safe,
what is safe, maybe who I am notso sure about who do I want to
meet, who do I want to hang outwith what looks fun?
(07:44):
Sure about who do I want tomeet, who do I want to hang out
with what looks fun?
We can tell that pretty quicklywhen we're in an environment
where we are personally withpeople.
We can walk up to a restaurantand decide whether we want to
eat there.
We can walk into a gathering offriends and decide who we want
to talk to, and we're alsogetting a full picture of those
(08:05):
people.
Obviously, we don't know theirdeep, dark secrets.
There's always stuff abouteveryone's life that we don't
know.
Hence, please always be kind,but hopefully you see my point
we get almost like a 3D picture,whereas if we're looking online
, we're getting just a flat 2Dpicture of people.
(08:29):
And we're trying, and ourbrains are trying, to do this.
We're trying to go online andwe're trying to identify who is
safe, what is safe, who do Iwant to meet or hang out with?
What looks fun, who looks fun?
And we're trying to do thatwith two dimensional information
(08:52):
not the full, whole picture,body, whole person
three-dimensional information,and it might work sometimes.
We definitely I've definitelymet people.
I feel the need to do airquotes.
There too, met people onlinewho've become great connections.
(09:12):
I can think of people who arecoaches just like me.
I can think of people who'vebeen on the podcast that I
really connected with.
I can think of kind of friends,of friends that I've connected
with.
It does happen that you meetpeople online and you get to
know them.
So I'm not saying we can't dothat, but I'm saying we're not
(09:33):
seeing the full picture, we'renot seeing the whole person.
So it's not quite so easy tokind of get a vibe from someone
and just know I'm seeing thisperson in their real habitat, as
their real self.
What do I mean by it's not thewhole person.
I think now we know this right.
(09:53):
Social media has been around fora long time.
We know that all of us, for themost part, are putting our
highlight reels I'm going tocall it on social media.
We're putting the fun trip andthe smiley picture and the
picture that makes us look goodand the exciting news about
(10:15):
whatever it is.
That's what we're putting onsocial media.
We're putting the inspirationalquote.
I do this too.
That's what we're all doing and, quite frankly, if that wasn't
what we were all doing, I don'tknow how much we would like it.
Imagine if you opened up asocial media app and you saw
(10:37):
everything was sad, complaining,negative, annoying.
Well, you wouldn't want to bethere, and I mean, we get that
way sometimes when we go throughrough periods, but you wouldn't
want to be there.
If that's what everybody wasdoing, why would you do that to
yourself?
So it makes sense that we'resharing the happy things, and I
(11:37):
love the fact that we get tocelebrate with people and we get
to enjoy with people, and whenpeople share something sad, we
get to help them.
That's great too.
For the most part, though, we'reseeing the moment that someone
picked that shows them in theirbest light and shows the best
angle to take a camera angle,example and shows the best piece
(11:59):
of news, and behind that, theycould be sad about something
else, and we don't know.
I could tell you I am, and Iwouldn't necessarily think you
would know.
So, for example, last year onInstagram if we're not connected
on Instagram, find me at CherylP Fisher so last year, one of
the most viewed reels on myInstagram was one that I just
(12:22):
kind of did while I was sittingon my sofa one day, and I put
the camera way down low andaimed it up at myself, so you
can imagine the chin problemsthat were going on there.
My face looked all distorted.
And then I lifted it up and Iheld it high, because, ladies, a
(12:43):
high angle is good.
And I did that all in one reeland my face went from looking
weird and gross to looking good,if I do say so myself.
And I said it's all aboutperspective, and I think that
resonated with people for tworeasons.
Number one it's a way toremember that the perspective we
(13:06):
look at something from is goingto color how we evaluate it and
what we think.
But number two, we are all soself-conscious about pictures of
ourselves when it comes tosocial media, and this is one of
the biggest places we fall intothe comparison trap.
So if you see a picture of youand your chin looks gross, or
your eyes are squinty or yourhair is sticking out or whatever
(13:30):
number one I can almostguarantee you that no one else
thinks that your chin does notlook gross, your hair is not
weirdly sticking out and youreyes don't look weird.
But number two, it's just theangle.
It's just the angle.
Anything that's closest to thecamera gets bigger.
Farther away from the camera,it gets smaller.
(13:51):
That's when you take a 3Dperson and make them flat.
That's what happens.
So when we know how to get agood angle, then we love our
pictures amazingly enough.
But no person in your life looksperfect all the time, always
says inspiring things and alwayshas tons of fun.
(14:12):
No person, not me, probably notyou, no person.
We all have challenges.
We all have our great hair daysand our not as great hair days.
We all have stuff right.
But as we look at all of thesehighlight reels, if we're not
(14:33):
careful, look at all of thesehighlight reels, if we're not
careful, because of therepetition over and over and
over, of seeing amazing, amazing, gorgeous, beautiful, amazing,
gorgeous, beautiful, we'restarting to create beliefs in
our subconscious minds thatpeople do have that all the time
and that creates a should thatwe should have that all the time
(14:54):
and that creates a should thatwe should have that all the time
Great hair, great clothes,great figure, great job, great
success, great family, greatfriends, great fun, great travel
Because by repetition, we'reseeing it all the time.
The danger is we start tobelieve that that is how life is
(15:15):
and once that belief starts tosink in, then our brains are
looking for our lives to be likethat as well Great all the time
.
And if you don't see youroutside world matching with that
, you don't see yourself lookinggreat, feeling great, dressing
(15:36):
great, having great fun, gettingpromotions, winning this,
getting the money, whatever,whatever.
If you don't see that evidencein your actual, real, 3d life,
that everything is great all thetime, then you are going to get
really upset with yourself.
And it's not fair because itwasn't true to begin with.
(15:57):
So when we catch ourselvessaying, well, why do I not look
perfect?
Or why can't I come up withsomething to post that's
inspiring and everybody likes it?
Or why don't I get to go ontrips like that?
Or why isn't my family thathappy?
Why don't I get to go on tripslike that?
Or why isn't my family thathappy?
(16:18):
We're judging ourselves, andwe're judging ourselves based on
a comparison that is not real.
And when we ask why can't I?
The secondary problem,unfortunately, is that our brain
is going to look for the answer.
When you ask a question likethat, your brain's going to go
try to find an answer.
It's going to try to findevidence in your life, evidence
(16:39):
in the world that helps you toanswer the question.
Your brain does not like to bewrong and it does not like to be
stumped.
So if I go around all the timesaying why don't I have these
great friends, why don't I getto do fun things, your brain is
going to find you an answer.
Why you don't Think about thatfor a minute.
(16:59):
It's probably not an answerthat you want, so we're going to
talk about switching thatquestion.
All of this comes from the ideathat your brain is keeping you
safe, not the idea this isreally happening.
And safety comes from fittingin.
Safety comes from being likeothers.
Safety comes from being in theprimitive group that all kept
(17:24):
each other safe and fed.
So, from the brain'sperspective, it's really
important for us to fit in, butwe can't fit in with a reality
that actually doesn't exist.
So what is the antidote to allthis?
Am I stressing you out?
I'm not trying to.
I'm just trying to make a pointthat this is something we need
to pay attention to.
(17:45):
The antidote to all this isself-trust and self-belief, and
I'm going to give you a few tipsjust to underscore how
important this is, and thenwe're going to go into a lot
more of it over the next fewweeks in Patreon and Substack.
So find Mind your Midlife onPatreon and on Substack and make
sure you have subscribed.
(18:07):
Okay, so easy for me to sayself-trust, self-belief, that's
what you need.
Okay, bye.
How do you do it?
You really want to know yourselfand often we know ourselves
almost in a comparison way, likeI'm as athletic as so-and-so,
(18:31):
but not as so-and-so.
I'm as successful as this one,but not quite as successful as
that one.
My family is as happy as theirfamily, but not apparently as
happy as that family.
Whatever it is, we almost knowourselves by comparison.
We put ourselves on this scalethat we've created and we slot
(18:54):
ourselves in on the scale.
Now, first of all, that scaledoesn't exist and you don't have
the full story on any of thoseother people.
But second of all, that's notreally knowing yourself, because
knowing yourself means knowingwhat you really want, what you
really value, really and trulywhat you value and what you want
(19:18):
, and recognizing how things inyour life make you feel and what
you're telling yourself aboutthose things.
That's creating those feelings.
So this might come from divingmore into your faith and
trusting in that.
It might come from learning howto calm your body and calm your
(19:41):
mind.
You can do that with tapping,you can do that with meditation
and allowing yourself time tothink about what do I really
want?
What actually makes me happy?
Why am I telling myself, forexample, that I look like a
hideous troll compared to allthese other women that I maybe
(20:04):
went to school with and now seeonline looking amazing and
glamorous?
Do I want to be amazing andglamorous or am I happy, being
comfortable and taking care ofmy body appropriately?
I mean, sometimes, what we'recomparing ourselves with we
don't even want if we reallythink about it.
The key is to really thinkabout it.
(20:26):
So a few tips, that's the bigpicture Calm your body, calm
your mind, recognize thethoughts going on in your head,
recognize how things make youfeel, recognize what idea kind
of piques your excitement.
A little bit Doesn't matter ifnobody else is doing it, doesn't
even matter if nobody else isdoing it.
That way, all right.
(20:47):
So then, as we're graduallygetting used to doing that, you
need to give yourself kind ofsome tools to help along the way
.
First of all, if you havesomeone in your life in a
relationship spouse, boyfriend,girlfriend type of relationship
or family, or even very closefriend, if you have someone in
(21:11):
your life that you can talkthrough this with and share
experiences with, that cuts thepower of comparison.
And in fact, I'm going to giveyou some statistics, because
there have been studies done onthis, as you might imagine,
where right now, a lot ofdifferent organizations are
(21:32):
studying social media, studyingits effect on anxiety and
depression on teenagers, and allof this.
So there was an analysis doneand this analysis included it's
what you call a meta-analysis,included over 55,000
participants over a number ofyears to figure out is there a
(21:54):
correlation that is significantat all between online social
comparison and concerns aboutbody image.
And, as you might imagine, yes,there was a significant
correlation.
There was another study tryingto figure out is there a link
(22:15):
between social media comparison,social networking sites, and
depression?
And yes, that was confirmed,there is a link.
Interestingly, a study in Chinafound that, even though some of
these comparisons we make canlead to depression, can lead to
(22:39):
envy, being in a goodrelationship, like I'm saying, a
marriage, a relationship, astrong family relationship, can
buffer the effect, buffer theeffect.
So, gosh, how many times havewe talked on the podcast about
how it's so important to be incommunity?
You might be married I am youmight not be.
You might be in a relationship.
(22:59):
You might have a sister, abrother, a cousin, a parent, a
child, a best friend that givesyou the same benefit.
Being in a good relationship,where they value you and you
value them, buffers this effect.
I don't know if anybody hasfigured out why, but I think we
(23:21):
could guess, couldn't we?
It's because now you're seeinga 3D picture and you see you
have evidence that shows youthat there is at least one
person, and probably more, inyour life who values you.
That cuts the power of all thiscomparison.
So community, please community.
(23:42):
What else can you do?
Notice your triggers.
So I'm not saying not to usesocial media.
We can certainly fall into thecomparison trap in real life.
As I said at the beginning, Ijust think this is mostly what
we're dealing with right now.
If you notice yourself withyour mood kind of going in the
toilet when something you aredoing is starting to make you
(24:06):
feel bad, make a note of it.
Now, this is probably not ajournal that you would really
want to keep for very long, butmaybe for a week or for two
weeks on a note in your phone.
Make a note.
If you've been doing somethingand you catch yourself starting
to feel kind of you know what Imean Bad about yourself, or
(24:32):
depressed or uninspired, whatwere you doing when that started
to happen?
Make a note of it and see ifyou can find a pattern and
figure out what your triggersare, because the more you know
right, if you know what yourtriggers are, you can avoid them
.
You can also curate what you seeon your social media.
(24:54):
This is one of the reasons Ienjoy TikTok, because I have
very carefully scrolled on bystuff I didn't want to see,
liked stuff I did want to see,and it does what I want.
I get a lot of comedy on myTikTok, so it's like a comedy
break, and I'm aware there's allsorts of other stuff there, but
it doesn't show it to me.
I would also say find peoplewho seem more real and authentic
(25:19):
.
Can you really know that forsure?
No, but if you notice themevery now and then, just being
real and not always showing theperfect version, okay, maybe
that's good.
Reality over glam.
And the other thing that hasreally helped me and I'm not
always great about this is toset an intention before I go on
(25:40):
social media, or before I gointo a group event, or before I
go to a networking event All ofthose places are where
comparison might start to happenI set an intention.
What am I doing there?
Am I looking for connection?
Am I looking for inspiration?
Am I looking to laugh or justkind of take a break?
Because if I've decided thatahead of time and again social
(26:04):
media or real life then mybrain's like all right, this is
what we're looking for and it'snot going to pay attention as
much to the other stuff.
Try it.
Setting an intention before youwalk into a situation online or
in real life, is powerful.
Okay, so oftentimes thecomparison trap is particularly
(26:25):
potent, particularly powerfulwhen something is going on in
our lives that is either new oris really really tough.
Some emotional upheaval isgoing on and that sends us down
the path of looking at otherpeople and asking why not?
So I promised you I'd come backto that.
(26:45):
We need to figure out how to askour brains different questions.
Maybe it's how can I feelbetter?
What can I do right now to moveforward?
How might this get better?
Instead of there's plenty morequestions we can think of, but
instead of why don't I have that?
Why can't I do that?
(27:06):
Do you see the difference?
The answer to those firstquestions maybe your brain, once
you calm it down, is going tocome up with some great ideas.
They often do.
The second group of questionsis just going to tell us why we
stink, and we don't needanything more to tell us that we
do that enough.
So think about the questionsyou're asking yourself.
(27:28):
And this is just pausing,catching your emotions, catching
your thoughts, just like I helpyou to do in the story cycle.
So grab the story cycleresource if you don't already
have it.
Cherylpfishercom.
Slash story cycle.
Come and join us in thecollective Subscribe on
Patreoncom.
Slash MindYourMidlife orMindYourMid midlife dot substack
(27:51):
dot com.
Same resources.
This month in September, I amdoing a live video series for
paid Patreon and Substacksubscribers on what to do when
your job situation has suddenlychanged.
So many people have asked me todo this, so that's coming soon
(28:12):
this month.
Make sure you're in there sothat you can grab it, because
talk about a time when you couldfall into the comparison trap.
Why me?
Why, like they, have this greatjob?
I'm a smart person.
I don't understand all thatkind of stuff, so I'm going to
help you in there with tappingto calm down, to figure out how
(28:33):
to move forward.
We're going to go through awhole series on what to do and
make sure you've hit the followbutton, because the next episode
of Mind your Midlife.
I have a physician's assistantjoining me to talk to us about
hormone health in midlife.
She works specifically withmidlife women about this exact
(28:54):
issue and does not affect all ofus, so I'll see you then.
In the meantime, slow down,notice what's going on around
you, what's going on in yourhead, and let's create something
amazing.
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