the bossbabe podcast - 161. How To Beat Imposter Syndrome + Cultivate Genuine Confidence

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

Let’s be honest...the “fake it ‘til you make it” attitude can only take you so far. So what do you do when your skills are going to be publicly put to the test and you’re afraid you’re going to get found out? You have to beat the imposter syndrome and develop genuine confidence in yourself.  And that can only happen when you learn how to stop comparing yourself to others. Sounds easy, right? (Probably not). That’s why we invited comparison-expert, Melissa Ambrosini to the podcast. She (literally) wrote the book on overcoming comparison and is sharing ALL her wisdom so you can stop feeling “not good enough” and start stepping into your power with a confident self belief. Links: Join BossBabe Next Level to level up your businesses, make more money and create a life you love: https://bossbabe.com/nextlevel Use code “BOSSBABE” to save 15% on Organifi: https://www.organifishop.com/ "Comparisonitis" by Melissa Ambrosini: http://www.comparisonitis.com/ Follow:  BossBabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie: @iamnatalie Danielle: @daniellecanty Melissa Ambrosini: @melissaambrosini

The truth is, is like we can all have and do whatever our heart desires. We just need to get out of our own way. And what I mean by get out of our own way is silence out critic and get that out of the way so that your true self can shine through because what is true for you needs to be expressed. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie and I am joined by Danielle. Hello. We're both interviewing our friend Melissa today and it's going to be a really,

really good one. But before I dive in, I want to tell you about something really exciting. So for the next 60 days, Danielle and I have committed to coaching you for free. And so we've actually put together an exclusive pop-up group. It's called Boss Babe Next Level. And we're doing just that. We want to really coach and support you to hit your next level, whatever that looks like. We just talked about in there how success looks different for everyone and starting to get clear on what that vision is. And we're going to give you all the tools, tips, techniques, and community to get you there. So you're going live soon. What are you going to talk about? Yeah, I'm going live in 20 minutes, actually. I'm going to be talking all about the power of saying no, because this has

been something that I've really come up against over the years. And so I'm just giving some tips and tricks around that and just allowing people to kind of readjust their mindset because I actually think being an entrepreneur, it's very important to learn to say no, because ultimately that's what's going to drive you more towards the next level that you want to get to. So just discussing and lifting a little bit about my past experiences and how I've overcome them and giving them a little bit of homework, you know, a couple of little things that they can have some fun with, some action steps, because that's what we're about. Like, I don't like fluff. I don't like if people are giving me their time, I'm going to give them some really good actionable takeaways that they can go and do and are going to have an impact in their life. That's what we're here for at Boss Babe. What is it? No BS, no fluff, no BS. i can't remember our own tagline oh my god i love it yeah exactly and a big part of this too we're not only coaching you but we want to just bring you behind the scenes a

little bit so you can really see like what do our rituals and routine look like what are our favorite processes what are conversations we have journal prompts all the things that we might not get a chance to show up on social and share we're going to be sharing in these lives as well as coaching you to reach your next level so make sure sure you join us. The link is just below in the show notes. You can hop in. Like we said, it's totally free. We're here with you for 60 days. I don't know that we'll ever do this again. We've never done this before, but it just felt like we're ready to step into offering a new level of support. The world's opening up. And I think a lot of people are starting to panic about what that looks like, about having to wear jeans and go back to normal. So we're just here to support

you all as much as possible. And speaking of that, we did an amazing episode that we can't wait to dive into. And we talked all about comparisonitis, self-doubt, self-belief. And I think it's a really important one because I don't know about you, Danielle, but I feel like people don't always want to talk about self-esteem or their self-esteem issues because it's kind of like shameful. Or if I talk about this, people are going to see it more in me. Totally. Like it's vulnerable speaking about it, right? But I always remember Brené Brown saying like vulnerability is a strength and that's why I want to show up and have these conversations. I mean, you are really vulnerable on there talking about some of the hangups that we've had. I think we spoke about our skin and stuff like that. And, you know, one thing I

learned really early on, on social media was that you tend to compare your weaknesses to somebody else's strengths and the importance of not doing that because it's actually, you know, it can be very detrimental. And it was really nice to think me, you and Melissa were very authentic and sharing what some of our struggles have been and how we've learned to love ourselves quirks and all so i think that's really important and i'm excited just because i'd never want people to look at us or anyone else and think that they don't have their own challenges that they're not overcoming because that's not true you know we need to make sure that is the whole this whole podcast is about the real behind the

scenes right it's not the highlight reel yeah i echo that too I really hope no one ever listens to us on here and think that we've totally got everything figured out and that we're always so calm and collected and we don't go through our own challenges because it's just not true and I think if we're ever selling that vision you know that's just not the case because entrepreneurship is a journey and life is a journey there's so many things to learn there's so growth edges. There's so much that we all go through. And I think it's nice sometimes just to be reminded of that, that you're not alone in your struggle and challenge. And at every level, there's always more. That's what I'm learning. 100%. Okay. So we're going to dive in. We'd love to know what you think of this. And if you would share this with a friend that you

think would actually really benefit from that conversation, you never know how you could impact someone's lives. So let's dive straight in. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself, confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. So I want to start by asking you what inspired you to write a book on comparison? So it was really born from my own struggles with comparisonitis, as I call it, which is the title of the book.

And how it came about is I was actually writing another book at the time with my husband. And we had written about 80,000 words. And I was sitting on the toilet, scrolling Instagram one day and comparing myself very toxically to a New York Times bestselling author who had just hit the list for like the millionth time. And I was comparing myself to her and I was saying, well, why aren't my books New York Times bestsellers? What's wrong with my books? They're bestsellers, but why aren't they New York Times bestsellers? And so I sat there and scrolled for a little while and felt really horrible about myself. And then I got off the toilet and I came upstairs to my office and I sat down and I got this email in my inbox from this girl called Kathy,

who follows me. And she was sharing how much my work has inspired her. And she was saying, I love your books. I listen to your podcast. I've been to some of your live events. I do your meditations every day. And you've inspired me so much, Melissa. I want to write my own book. Do you have any advice for a first-time author? I can't stop comparing myself to you. I want to write books as good as you. And I just had this epiphany, this like light bulb moment where I thought in that exact moment, Kathy's comparing herself to me and I'm comparing myself to this New York Times bestseller. And that New York Times bestseller is probably comparing herself to someone else. And I just realized that we're all comparing ourselves to everyone else. And social media is an incredible

tool, but it has really highlighted how unhealthy the comparison trap can be. If we're not aware of it, if we don't have the tools, and if we're not conscious of addictions, then we can really spiral down into toxic comparisonitis. And so that's how one of the ways the book was birthed and born. And also with the rise of depression and anxiety and panic attacks and even suicide, a couple of years ago, I lost a girlfriend to suicide who was our age. She was absolutely stunning, so intelligent, had everything going for her, but compared herself so toxically to other people for a majority of her life. And it took over her life. It took her life. So that was another reason why I wanted to write the book. And

I wanted to share my journey with comparisonitis and how I've been able to move through it and the tools and the tips and the tricks and everything that I've been able to do to heal my own comparisonitis and come back to that place of love within myself and that inner peace and contentment. And that's what I share in the book. I'm so glad that we are talking about this. And you just said a couple of things that are really just kind of like sitting with me it's like comparing is fine but it's when you toxically compare and for me I would love for you to define what you mean by that but my interpretation is what we tend to do is when we compare ourselves toxically we look at our weaknesses but compare them to someone else's strengths or we compare our lack of achievements to somebody else's achievements

and it's almost like when we do the comparison it's not even on the same playing field because we can all compare ourselves in a positive way and be like oh yeah like I can compare myself to Natalie and see the strengths to strengths but when I go into that toxic that negative place which I think is so so easy to do and I'm really glad we're opening up this conversation around it then you start going oh well Natalie can do this but I can't do this. I am comparing strengths and weaknesses. It's not even fair. It's not even a level playing field. So that's my interpretation of toxic comparison, but I'm curious as to what yours is, Melissa. Absolutely. And I'm so glad that you brought this up because for as long as we can remember,

we have compared ourselves. But due to social media, it has gone down the more toxic route because social media is the highlight reel. And I talk about that in the book. And we need to remember that. But you're right. There is healthy comparison and there's toxic comparison. So let me give you a couple of examples to help you understand a little bit more. But healthy comparison is looking at you're on the treadmill at the gym and someone jumps on the treadmill next to you and they start running faster and their incline is higher. And you look at them and you start comparing yourself and you think, well, she's the same age as me. And she looks like similar sort of body shape as me. Like,

maybe I could go a little bit faster and maybe I could go a little bit higher on the incline. And then you put your incline up and you put your speed up and you finish your 30 minute run and you get off and you feel really proud of yourself. And you're like, wow, I achieved something really great. And I'm super proud of myself. Or you can look at this New York Times bestseller and you could be inspired by their work. You could look at Danielle or you could see something she's doing or you could look at anyone out there, anyone that's doing great things and think, well, if they can do it, so can I. If they can launch these amazing products

and programs and live events and write amazing books and get this many people to come to their online webinar or whatever it is, then surely I can do that too. So it's about using the comparison as inspiration and motivation. But what a lot of people do is they turn that comparison into unhealthy, I'm not good enough. Like you said, I'm not good enough. They let their inner mean girl, I call it, the inner critic, go on a spiral of I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I can't do that. Who do I think I am? I can't write bestselling books or no one's going to come to my event. So there is a difference between healthy comparison and toxic

comparison. And I highlight this in the book and it does need to be brought to our attention. And you need to become aware of what are you doing when you scroll Instagram? Are you being inspired by the people that you're following or are you spiraling into a comparisonitis trap? I love that. And I am so guilty of this. I'm hearing it and I'm like, yep, yep. I'm so guilty of it. I'm hearing it. I'm like, yep, yep. I'm so guilty of it. And what's really interesting is when you were talking about how you were comparing yourself and someone else comparing themselves to you, I get the same thing. I get DMs being like people comparing themselves. And then I look at other people on Instagram and I'm like, oh, they've got

their shit together completely. They make us all look so easy. And I find myself doing it, but then I don't really know how to stop. So I feel like you need to give us some therapy because I can step outside and take a good look at it and be like, well, you don't really know what's going on in that person's life. They're only sharing the highlight reel. And I get so bought into the trap. Yes. A lot of people do. A lot of people do. So I talk about there's some strategies because there's a whole chapter in the book on social media, because in my research, I looked at what are the four most common areas we compare. And one was due to parenting comparison, our body comparison. And one of the biggest catalysts was social media that really spiral us into comparisonitis. And so in this chapter, I talk

about things that we need to remember when we are on social media. And like you mentioned before, remembering that it is everyone's highlight reel. It is the highlights. It's the best part. You're not going to post the totality of your day. You're not posting every single thing that you do. And so it's very easy to look at these people and go, wow, they've got it all together. But another thing I talk about is I talk about zooming out. And what I mean by zooming out is remembering to look beyond the frame. You don't know what is beyond the frame. They might have a toddler who was having an absolute tantrum in the background. They may have just found out that their grandma is dying of cancer.

You have no idea what's going on beyond the frame. So we need to remember that. We need to zoom out and remember that there is so much more than what is just that perfect image of someone laying on the beach in the Maldives or something like that. We have to remember that there's so much more outside that frame. And another thing we need to remember when talking specifically about social media is that a lot of people have professional photographers, stylists, hair and makeup artists, sets, things like that. And we forget that. We forget that these are perfectly curated feeds. And this is a lot of people's business. This is how they make money. It's one of yours and mine biggest marketing tools.

It's what we use to market and promote all of the beautiful work that we both, all of us do here. And so we need to remember that. I'm not going to post a photo that has shadows all over my face or is too dark and just doesn't look good. I'm just not going to do it. And so we need to remember that a lot of these photos are professional photos and that's okay. It's part of the gig and this

is our business. And we have to remember that influencers and people who use social media as their business, it's like an architect or an artist with their portfolio. They're not going to put their shittiest work in their portfolio when they go for a job interview. they're not going to put their shittiest work in their portfolio when they go for a job interview. They're not going to put their crappiest houses or their crappiest piece of artwork. They're going to put their best artwork in there. And I share this story in the book. I used to be a professional dancer and actress and TV presenter, and we had to have an acting show reel. And so in my show reel was like a three minute highlight reel of all of my best acting pieces that I've ever done. Do you think I put any crappy

pieces in there? No way. Like I put the best pieces of me acting in there. And that's the same as social media. Like we just need to remind ourselves of these things when we are scrolling social media. And that is going to help us stop us from spiraling into that toxic comparison, which then from my research, like leads to anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and like I said, even some suicidal thoughts and things like that. And we need to address this now. And the reason we need to address it now is because social media isn't going anywhere. It's an amazing tool. It's an incredible tool and it's not going anywhere. However, we do need to learn how to be discerning with how we use it because our children are

growing up with these things, these phones attached to their hands at a very young age. Like I'm so grateful that I didn't have this when I was going through high school. And now they're getting phones so young and they're jumping on social media very young. And so we need to be able to support them and help the younger generation and support them so they don't fall into the trap of comparisonitis. I was just going to say, I've said so many times, I would hate to be a teenager growing up right now. I can't even imagine the pressure they must feel because I remember how much pressure I felt in high school and we didn't have Instagram. I just cannot imagine that. And one thing you said is you were looking at different categories

of where we compare. You said parenting's one, body's one. What are the other two? Yeah. So relationships, definitely. So it's like not only like romantic relationships, it's like I'm single or they're married or they're engaged. Not only that, but also friendships. So a lot of people compare friendships like, why don't I have soul sisters like that? Why don't I have friends like that? I get asked a lot. Whenever I post a photo or something of me and my soul sisters, people message me on Instagram and they'll say, I want that. Why can't I have that? I want that so badly so that relationship is a really big one where people fall into very very toxic comparisonitis I think that relationship is actually really

interesting because I think first of all from a romantic point of view there's lots of people on social media like you say who are very open about the romance side of their relationships and I think that can lead to a lot of people oh my goodness I'm actually I remember reading if you guys read the book Twilight yes I watched the movies I didn't wait the book the books are way better the movies didn't do it justice but I remember thinking like wow the way Edward looks at Bella why don't I have that it's like fictional and that's the thing as well like what you were saying earlier with social media it's not fictional but in many that it's like fictional and that's the thing as well like what you were saying earlier with social media it's not fictional but in many ways it's like you say it's the best foot forwards

and I think there's a big education piece around remembering you know you were just sharing like okay well if I was going to send my images that I've done or my website you're not going to put rubbish things on and that's exactly the same with social media and I think there's an education piece around that for people and young teenagers and those growing up which is like this is not reality let's just remember this is a platform to showcase the best versions of people's lives that's what they utilize it for I think there's a big importance around remembering that and then from the romantic relationships to the friendship relationships I want to speak to that because like that's why we created the society where so people connect and meet their friends but I know Natalie and I get a lot of questions about

our friendship are very publicly close everyone knows us as co-founders and one thing I would always say is when you get those messages and it's like why can't I have that is there an educational piece around like how can I have that Because there's some things that you can have, but it's like being intentional about seeking it out. And I'm curious as to when it becomes, let's say, inspirational. So it's like, oh, I want to find that and I want to seek that. This is available to me. Wow.

And I can lean into that versus, oh my goodness, they have that. I can't have that. And then it becoming going down another spiral and I'm curious how we can support more people being inspired to create positive action versus going down the wrong hole of being into a victimhood. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really

helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. It comes back to awareness. We have to become aware of where we're at, like do a little check-in with our own comparison and look at what

area you compare yourself most in. Is it relationships? Is it body image? Is it parenting? Is it trying to conceive? Whatever area, is it business? Like what area are you most prone to sliding down that comparison slippery dip? And then you need to ask yourself, what I see in other people is what I have within myself. So that's a really big thing to remember because whenever I look at you two, super successful, creating amazing things in the world, changing lives, inspiring millions with the work that you guys do. To me, that's inspiring. And I go, well, if Danielle and Natalie can do it, I can do it too. So it's like what you see in other people you have within yourself, and maybe there's frustration and anger because you're denying it, you're suppressing it. And that's something you need to look at. That's where we need to do a

little bit of personal development work. Or maybe you do, you see it and you go, wow, okay, they're doing this and they're doing that. And that's amazing. And I can do it too. And you use it as fuel. You use it as inspiration. You use it as motivation to move you forward toward your dream, whatever area it is that you are comparing. And it's so important that we remember that it's not the totality of someone's life. They're not live streaming 24 seven on their phone. And you're not seeing the whole lot. You're not seeing everything. You're seeing snippets. You're seeing like a couple of minutes out of the day of the best parts. And so, like I said before, you have to remember that. But the best way to use your comparison as inspiration

and motivation is to get really honest with yourself about what area you're comparing most. Is it body image? Is it parenting? Whatever, business. And then remember that what you see in that person, you have within yourself. And maybe you're denying it and that's why you're angry or frustrated or comparing in an unhealthy way. But truly, the truth is that what you see in them, you have within you. Can we dive into that a little more? So if someone's listening and they're looking at

someone on Instagram and they're thinking, oh, that person is so productive. And then they're hearing you say, well, what I see in others is what I have in myself, but then their inner voice is, but I'm not productive. I know I'm not. What would you say in that situation? So they need to go back and reread my first book, Mastering Your Inner Mean Girl, because that's inner mean girl, the inner critic that's saying, well, no, I'm not. I know you're not. You're not productive because we can all be productive. When something is true for you, you will move mountains to make it happen. When something is not true for you, you will move mountains to make it happen. When something is not true for you, you will build a million excuses around why you can't do it. And we need to get honest with

ourselves around that. Like, why am I actually procrastinating? Is this not true for me? Is this something that my parents told me I should do? Or is this something that someone else, my partner or someone's forcing me to do. We need to be honest with ourself. And that's where a lot of everything comes back to is being really honest about where we're at and what is coming up for us. And being really truthful with yourself is how we grow and evolve. And that's what we're here for. But the truth is, is like we can all have and do whatever our heart desires. We just need to get out of our own way. And what I mean by get out of our own way is silence our inner critic and get that out of the way so that your true self

can shine through because your true self wants to be fully expressed. It wants to do the incredible work that you want to do in the world or create the beautiful art that you want to create in the world. But some of us just have very loud inner critics that keep telling us that we're not good enough and we're not smart enough. But the truth is you are. And what is true for you needs to be expressed because that's when we're living in alignment with our highest self. I love that so much and I totally agree. When you're in alignment, things flow and if you're not, then it might be time to reassess. Okay, we're going to take a quick break right now to hear from our sponsor. Okay, so I want to interrupt this episode quickly to tell you about a brand that I am completely obsessed with. So if you watch my stories,

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So that's BOSSBABE at Organifi. So use the code BOSSBABE, 15% off at Organifi.com. And I'll let us dive back into the episode. And it sucks because as women, I think we do compare ourselves probably more than men. It's probably always been this way. And you mentioning body image, I know that's definitely a thing. And I'm guilty of it. When my skin is playing up, I'm so guilty at looking at a friend's skin. I'm like, their skin is perfect. Why can't I have perfect skin? What would you say in that situation where it's not necessarily something that I could just go away and change? It's something that I need to learn to accept

within myself and not get so deflated when I see it in others. Yeah, this is a big one. This is really big. And this is something I struggled with for many years too, especially skin. I used to have acne and I had eczema all over my face and I used to get these severe cold sores all over my face. And so I can 100% relate and it really squashed my confidence so much. I remember not wanting to leave the house and just feeling so deflated. And so with something like that, it showed me that there was areas that I needed to love myself more. I needed to love myself unconditionally. So when I would compare myself to these other women that had perfect skin, I would realize that, okay, Melissa, you need to dive deeper into some self-love

because what you're going through right now is just a phase and it will pass. One of my favorite mantras is this too shall pass and it will phase. I'm not going to have skin like this forever. And I need to love myself during this process of healing. Because obviously, well, for me, when my skin would play up, I was usually very stressed or detoxing or something like that. And I needed to love myself and hold myself during that process. And for me, that was the reminder to hold myself needed to love myself and hold myself during that process. And for me, that was the reminder to hold myself and to love myself during that process, not beat myself up even more, not compare myself toxically even more to other people. It was an opportunity to go deeper into self-love within myself. And that's what I did.

Can I ask, what are some practices around self-love within myself. And that's what I did. Can I ask what are some practices around self-love? Because I feel like it gets thrown around a lot and this whole conversation, I'm seeing a lot come back to that. So what are the things that you recommend people do to pour into themselves, hold that space? What are some practical things that help? I think self-love, it is spoken about so much and no one talked to me about it as a child. I never had heard self-love before. It wasn't until I dove into the personal development world and when I hit rock bottom in 2010, I picked up my first self-help book, which was Louise Hayes, You Can Heal Your Life.

And she talks about self-love and I was like, what is this self-love business? I have no idea because my mom never spoke to me about it. I didn't know. But what I realized is that everything comes back to self-love. Every decision we make comes back to how much do I love myself from the people we choose to surround ourselves with, from what we choose to eat, how we choose to move our body, the work that we choose to do in the world. Do we stay up late? What do we watch? What do we listen to? What do we consume? If you look at everything in your life, it all comes back to, I could tell someone on a scale of one to 10, how much self-love they have by answering those questions. What are they eating and how are they moving their body and what areas they need a little bit more attention and more love.

So it is so important and we need to talk about it. We need to practice it so that our young kids that are growing up can watch their parents and watch their elders taking care of themselves and looking after themselves. And so for me, self-love, it can look so many different ways. It really can. And I know what zero self-love feels like. I know what I've trashed my body. I have partied. I have taken drugs. I have taken very unhealthy fat burning pills and I have surrounded myself with incredibly toxic relationships. I have done work that I didn't love because I didn't feel like I was worthy of doing what I loved. I have stayed up all night, like just self-sabotaging. I've done it all. And so I know what zero self-love feels like. And I know what 10 out of 10 self-love feels like. And I know when I slide down the scale and I know what to do to get myself back up. So I want to talk

about what do we do to get ourselves back up so we're a 10 out of 10 on the self-love scale. And one of the biggest things we need to do is learn how to master that inner critic inside our head that's telling us that we're not good enough or pretty enough or smart enough or we'll never meet the guy or we'll never get out of debt, that voice. And the way that we master that, I've got like a four-step process that I can share with you. And I call it the cast process. And this is about casting aside your inner critic so that your true self can shine through. And so the first step C, it's an acronym and C stands for character. You need to create a little character for your inner critic. And mine is a little

version of me that sits on my right shoulder that's wearing a little devil outfit with a little pitchfork. But some people, someone else, it doesn't have to be them and you give it a name. And what creating this character does is it helps you disassociate it from your true self. Because most people buy into the story of their inner critic or buy into the things that their inner critic is telling them when that's not true. It's truly not true. And so that's the first step is to create a character. Then A in the cast process stands for awareness. You need to become aware of when your inner critic is saying things to you and what she is saying to you. So what areas does she really pipe up? Is it around relationships or is it around body image? And what exactly is

she saying? You're not good enough or you'll never get out of debt. You'll never meet the guy. You're too fat. You're too ugly. Your skin is horrible. Write it all down. Because once we have become aware of something, we can then transform it. It's like shining light in a dark room. Once you've got the torch, you can then see. But most of us are just walking around and bumping into things because we haven't shone the light on it yet. So awareness is the second step and that's really important. And then S in the cast process is shutting the door. So what we want to do is when that inner critic comes knocking on your mental door to tell you something like, you're not smart enough, you're not good enough, who do you think you are, you'll never meet the

guy, you'll never get out of debt. Instead of opening the door and letting that inner critic come into your house and sleep over and wear your clothes and eat your food, which is what a lot of people allow their inner critic to do, they allow their inner critic to live rent-free in their mind. We want to say, thank you, but I'm not interested today. And we gently close the door on our inner critic. And then the last step, T, is truth. We come back to the truth. Like get really honest with yourself. Is it really true that I will never meet the guy that I will never get out of debt? Like never is a very strong word, very, very strong word. And so we come back to our heart. We come back to

the truth and the whole cast process leads you back to the truth of who you are. So that's probably the number one step in self-love and doing that four-step process. Women have between 60 and 80,000 thoughts a day. And a lot of those are negative, inner critic, toxic thoughts. So we may be doing that little process 60 to 80,000 times in one day. And that's okay because the more you do it, the quicker you get at it, the stronger you get at it. It's like working any muscle. The more you flex it, the stronger you're going to get at it.

And what I've realized myself is whenever there's an opportunity, whenever my inner mean girl pops up to say anything, like that's an opportunity for me to master her and to go deeper in self-love. So that's probably the best and the quickest self-love tool to help you dial your self-love back up. But I also wanted to share a couple of more. There's things like just taking time for yourself is a beautiful act of self-love. It doesn't even necessarily matter what you do in that time. But for me, sitting 20 minutes and meditating is an act of self-love. Me taking myself to the beach with a book is an act of self-love. Having an Epsom salt and essential oil bath is an act of self-love.

Preparing a nourishing organic meal for myself is an act of self-love. Preparing a nourishing organic meal for myself is an act of self-love. Going to bed early and reading is an act of self-love. Surrounding myself with inspiring people is an act of self-love. There are so many things that we can do. And I get people to create a self-love menu where there's 10 things that really fill them up from the inside out. Maybe it's gardening, maybe it's surfing, maybe it's cooking, whatever it is, but create this list, this menu, so to speak, a self-love menu of 10 things that really make you feel full from within and stick that on your fridge and try and do one thing from that list every single day. And if you're a mom of five children, you can create

five minutes in your day before everyone gets up or five minutes anytime in the day where you can just sit and breathe or have a cup of tea or something like that. Do what feels good for you and create that list and then commit to doing at least one thing from that list every single day to dial up your self-love and keep it up. That's how we stay overflowing with self-love. I love that self-love menu. I'm literally going to do that. That's pure genius, just creating the time and space to lock them down and then refer back to them when you need it. Sorry, Natalie, you were going to say something then. I was just going to say my favorite part of the cast process was the awareness, especially as it pertains when we're talking about comparison,

because I remember I started doing shame work for the first time, it was about a year and a half ago. And I really didn't realize that was a body of work. I didn't ever think about shame. And what I realized was a lot of the things that I was maybe comparing myself to others, I actually felt a lot of shame around. And what happens is you almost don't want to name it because you're like, if I name this and I point this thing out then everyone's gonna notice and it's gonna become more apparent and so instead you hold it in and you hold shame around that thing whereas in truth if you just named it like as they say when you name it you claim it you claim your power back by going out and saying that

and if you mention it or name it to a friend or someone that loves you, they'll be like, wow, I never saw that in you or that's really not my story. And that is so powerful. When I started doing that work, that changed my life completely. And whenever I noticed that I have shame beliefs pop up, I'm so quick to name them and write them down and be like, no, you don't get to live in my head telling me this thing and making me feel shameful around this thing that is such a story. So I love that you shared that because probably a lot of comparison does come down to that. Absolutely. And everyone has felt shame at some point and some people more than others. And it's just an emotion, just like everything else. And it's okay, but we don't have to let that run and ruin our life and take hold. And we don't have to let

shame in the driver's seat of our life. It can kick it out. Let your true self shine through. I'm really curious. So you start, you were writing another book and this one came to you, which I love that you had the guts to stop writing this book, even though you've did 80,000 words. Something we talk about, like me and Danielle a lot is just because we've been doing something doesn't mean we need to keep doing something. We have to be okay with stopping something, even if you've put so many hours of work into it and saying, you know what, this isn't aligned. And every hour that I continue spending on this, I'm spending out of alignment. So I love that you did that. And I love that it came, that the book was born out of something you were doing. So as you were writing this,

what most surprised you about comparison or what surprised you about what you were learning? It's a really good question. What surprised me about it? I guess just how much men deal with this as well. In my research, because we're all females, right from my perspective, but I interviewed so many men and I wanted to dig deep into their minds and ask them where they compare themselves. And I had so many conversations with my husband about it, but I think that really surprised me a lot. They compare obviously their bodies. They go to the gym and he's buffer than me and he's got bigger biceps than me and things like that. But also that person provides more for their family or they go on more expensive holidays and I can't afford to go on that holiday or he's earning more than me or things like that. So that really did surprise me.

I know obviously how much women compare themselves. I know because I'm one and I do it. And I just also wanted to mention, you said before, I was writing another book and something that I live by is pivoting and pivoting fast. If you're going to pivot, pivot and pivot fast. Don't dwell on it. Don't hold on to it. Just pivot. I have, yes, I wrote 80,000 words.

I had a signed book deal. And then I emailed my publisher and I said, I don't want to write this book anymore. Here's a proposal for Comparisonitis. Can I write this book? And we jumped on a call and she was like, absolutely, Melissa, you can do this. And I'm so grateful I have the most incredible publisher that allowed me to do that. And she trusts me so much after working with her for all my other books. So pivot and pivot fast. I've also been in a situation where I've created an entire mastermind. I've spent thousands of dollars, so many hours. And then one day I woke up and I was like, I don't want to do this. And so I stopped. I could have beat myself up about it.

I could have let my inner mean girl say, but you've spent so much money and you spent so many hours creating this mastermind. You have people already lined up. It's like fully booked already. You're going to let everybody down, but it just didn't feel true for me. And I think we have to always do what feels true for us. That's when we're living in alignment, whether it's relationships, whether it's what food we eat, whether it's the work that we do in the world, it has to be in alignment with our highest truth because that's when life flows. It's when we start doing things that we think we should do that we get out of alignment. When we start comparing and we look left and right and we're seeing, well, what's Danielle doing? And

what's Natalie doing? And, well, they're going faster than me. I'm not keeping up with them. It's like, no, stay in your own lane. I talk about this in the book, stay in your own lane and put your little blinkers on and just do what is in alignment and true for you. That's when you're going to field from deep within and that inner peace and contentment that we all desire. I'm so glad we're talking about this. One thing I just want to ask though is like that true for you, right? I know that my past self would have been like, well, what does that mean? How do I know what's true for me? So I just want to spend a couple of minutes talking about that. Maybe from each of us, we can each give our own perspectives because I think there will be listeners going,

I don't understand how I know what's true for me because I know I've certainly been in that position not too long ago. If I think about probably I started my self-development journey really at the start of Boss Babe, maybe a year before that. Prior to that, this was language that I had not been exposed to. So Melissa, do you want to start? What does true for you mean? To work out what is true for me, it is a bodily response.

My body will feel expansive. My shoulders may be back a little bit. My chin might be up a little bit. When something is in alignment, when something feels true, it's a bodily reaction for me. I feel expansive. When something is not true for me, I feel contracted. Maybe I feel like a little bit of like a punch in the guts or my shoulders will come forward. Maybe my chin will be down and it's more in my body. I'm a very in my body. And so for me, it's a bodily thing.

One feels expansive. One feels contracting. So that's how I know and that's how I differentiate. But I'm curious, how do you guys? So for me, the things that are true for me is when something gives and generates energy for me, that's when I know that it's in full alignment. And if it depletes my energy, I know it isn't. So let's say there's something on my calendar, even if I've got a crazy day, if I know, oh my God, I'm excited

to hop into this and I hop into this and I'm energized and I'm not thinking about, oh, I need another coffee or how much longer is this going to go on then that's what's true for me whereas if I'm dreading that thing on my calendar and I'm trying to push it back and I'm wondering if someone else can jump in and take over then I know that's a sign of okay you get to start not doing this anymore and this isn't true for you what about you Danielle I love both your answers and actually a real combination of both of them like I definitely relate to that body and particularly on the energy piece like when I'm doing things that are true for me and like I have so much I'm just like bouncing off the walls and just really I'm kind of like saying a bit of combination what you said as well Natalie but then in addition

I think I feel and flow like I can't really explain it but when I'm doing things that are true for me things just kind of fall into place it becomes easy sometimes if I feel like I'm pushing a boulder up a hill and it's like I'm having to do everything to try and get this to work it's normally that it's not fully something I'm aligned to so I always just watch out for that but a big thing that I just noticed was giving myself space to find out what was true for me. So the times in my life that I've ended up doing things that have not been fully in alignment was when I've been so busy trying to get things done and not stopping to, like I did things versus stopping to make a decision. So I made a decision in a rush, like, oh yeah, I have to make a decision on this. I have

to go versus being like, okay, I'm just going to check in with myself. I'm just going to sit with this a minute. And then I can normally get into a place where I'm like, oh yeah, this feels like a yes. And this is an alignment versus, oh no, this doesn't feel like my truth. I ended up doing things that are not me when I don't give myself space to check in with intuition, let's call it, or gut or whatever that superpower is those women have. So yeah, a bit of combination with that added on, I think for me. It's a thing that for me, as I'm constantly growing, I'm constantly changing. And it's that whole idea of just because I've done something or committed

to something for a certain amount of time, doesn't mean I need to keep it up. Especially with work, there's things that I love doing when we first start the business that at a certain point, I realized, you know what, this doesn't light me up anymore. I'm going to step away from it. I'm going to make the decision that that's no longer part of my role. And being okay doing that and giving myself grace to go and explore something else. And another thing that we do at Boss Babe too, and we always try and honor this with each other is sometimes we feel like doing something or not doing something purely based on feeling. There's no data. In fact, the data might support the absolute opposite, but we give ourselves the grace to say, nope, if the intuition is off, then it's a no. It doesn't matter what the data is

saying. It's a no, which has been a game changer. Absolutely. I love that. I love all of these. They're amazing. So for anyone listening, maybe that's a fun exercise. You could go away, grab a journal and write like, what does that mean? How do I know when something's true for me? How do I know when it's in flow? Melissa, thank you so much for being on. This has been such an inspiring conversation. I cannot wait to grab a copy of your book. I know it's in the post on the way. Can you let everyone know where they can grab a copy? Yes, just head to comparisonitis.com and you can grab your copy there. It's in all bookstores and online and I've got some amazing goodies when you purchase the book. So check out

my bonuses as well. And I just want to thank you guys so much for having me on the show. I just love what you do. I love what you have created. You two are such light beams and it's been such a pleasure to connect with you and chat with you today. Thank you. And also I think you have the best book title that I've heard in a really long time. I was going to say that exact same thing. It's genius. Genius. How did you get the domain name? Everyone's like, how did you get the domain name? And because we actually got it maybe two years ago, we got it ages ago because it was something that I really wanted to write and I just loved, but we got it a while ago. So I'm very glad that we got

comparisonitis.com. That's just amazing. My mind always goes there to the domain name. I love it. Well, I cannot wait to read it. Thank you so, so much. Thank you for having me, ladies. If you loved this episode, please subscribe subscribe download a few more and please leave us a review i really want to hear what you enjoyed what your main takeaways were and i also want to know what you want to hear us talk about next to say thanks for leaving us a review we'll send you a copy of the boss babe 25 the boss of 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth it covers everything from our favorite rituals books and hacks if you want a copy just is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth. It covers

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