The saying goes, ‘comparison is the thief of joy’ and do you know what? I completely agree.
I’ve been having Italian lessons since October last year and it is really fucking hard trying to learn a new language as a nearly 45 year old, along with all the other shit - running my own business, working two days a week in a school office, having two young children, a husband, life admin and everything else in between. For the first few weeks I felt like I was always bottom of the class and lagging behind everyone else as the others seemed to know more than me. I felt like I didn’t know enough and needed to try harder so I could be better and on the same level as everyone else. So what was meant to be something fun and a new experience was turning into something stressful and a stick to beat myself with. What I quickly realised was, number 1, comparing myself to the others is my group was making me miserable, number 2, this comparison was encouraging my inner critic and this was where those ‘try harder’ ‘do better’ ‘not good enough’ thoughts were coming from and, number 3, the others in the group had a completely different life situation to me. They didn’t have young kids, and most of them were retired, some could speak another two languages and a few had already completed a beginners Italian module. We all had the same goal, to learn Italian but we all had different starting points and we all lead different lives so our journeys to reaching our shared goal are going to be very different. So, when you are looking at your own health journey I encourage you to look at your own individual situation. Avoid comparing yourself to others because it is going to lead to you feeling shit about yourself and amplify that negative voice inside your head. It leads to those ‘I wish I was more’ ‘If only I was better’ ‘I’m not good enough’. No one really knows what is going on in the life of the person you are comparing yourself to. Everything you see on social media is curated. Instead focus on where you are at now and compare this to where you were before. It’s always about the baby steps on your health journey. Celebrate those baby steps as they are going to lead to where you want to be. If you have to go via another stop point be kind to yourself, give yourself a break and remind yourself of how far you have come.