High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 494: Letting Go of Comparison

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

It’s easy to compare yourself or your performance to others instead of staying focused on your own improvement. It’s easy because we live in a culture obsessed with comparison. Go deep for a minute: How have you shifted your eyes toward your competitors or others’ achievements or things? How has this impacted your performance or happiness? Would you like to change your focus? In this episode, Dr. Cindra helps us explore the negative consequences of comparison and what to do instead. Power Phrase of the Week: “ I pursue my standard of excellence. I stay gritty and work to be my best one step at a time.” Quote of the Week: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” —Theodore Roosevelt

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best, so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. We check in with Cinder Kampoff this morning and our topic is letting go of comparison. Cinder,

start us out with a quote. I love this quote by Teddy Roosevelt. He said, comparison is the thief of joy. So tell us about the topic for today. Well, today we're talking about letting go of comparison and it's really easy to compare ourselves to other people instead of, you know, staying focused on our own improvement. And I think it's easy to do this, especially because our culture is obsessed with comparison. So to get started, I want people to kind of think about, you know, have you ever shifted your eyes towards someone else or to other people's achievements or things? And how has that impacted your happiness or maybe your performance? And would you like to change that focus?

And why is the topic so important today? Well, we compare our appearances or our businesses or, you know, our number of friends or our ethnic ability or maybe even our social media followings to other people. And we do this to evaluate ourselves and get a sense of our place in the world. But the problem is we usually don't compare ourselves in a fair way. We compare the, you know, the highlight reel of others to kind of, you know, our behind the scenes footage. We never compare our whole self to someone else's whole self. And so what's the negative impact of comparison? Well, it can make us feel like we're

never enough and it can feel like a trap. Ultimately, it leads to self-doubt and researchers have found that comparing ourselves to other people leads to like a low self-confidence and judgment. It can lead to anxiety or loneliness or separation. And I think it definitely impacts our ability to stay gritty and go after our goals. Lisa, I did a master's thesis many years ago on this topic, and we also found that jealousy and comparing ourselves to others negatively impacted team performance. So just our ability to stay together as a team and our satisfaction with the team. Well, what should we do instead? Well, I'd say the happiest and most successful people take pleasure in other people's successes.

They show concern for other people when they fail instead of celebrating their successes or celebrating their failures. And I love this quote by T. Harv Eckerd. And he said this, he said, bless what you want. If you see a person with a beautiful home, bless that home, bless that home, or bless that person. If you see a person with a beautiful car, bless that person and bless that car. If you see a person with a loving family, bless that person and bless that family. If you see a person with a beautiful body, bless that person and bless their body. So just the idea of like taking pleasure in other people's successes, I think

is really important. So, Cinder, how can we gain awareness of when we're doing that comparison? Well, the less attention you pay to other people in terms of comparison, the happier you'll become. So the way to kind of gain more awareness is just to ask yourself to fill in this blank. You know, I believe I'm not blank enough when I compare myself to blank. Oh, okay. All right. How would you like to finish for today? So I'd say the first choice you can make is to celebrate your progress instead of, you know, comparing yourself to another person. So you could do this just by thinking about the progress that you've made and maybe think about your goals or dreams and compare them to a year ago or,

you know, three years ago and celebrate your success. And then I think the second way is just to ask yourself, you know, what can you learn from this person when you're comparing? And learning from someone you admire is the best way to really continue to grow and be your best. Cinder, what's this week's power phrase? I pursue my standard of excellence.

I stay gritty and work to be my best one step at a time. And if people are interested in following along with your work, where can we find more about what it is that you do? Sure. So part of today's topic comes from my book, Beyond Grit. And so you can find more information about the book or my coaching or speaking at drcindra.com. So d-r-c-i-n-d-r-a.com.