Day 9 of the 12 tips of the holiday series to help manage the holiday stress. Today I’m talking about letting go of those pesky comparisons. Watch the video below!
Hi everyone! My name is Diana Garcia and I’m a licensed mental health counselor in Florida and founder of a private practice called Nurturing Minds Counseling.
I’ve been doing 12 days of holiday tips. Today we are on tip number nine, but I encourage you to check out videos and blogs 1-8. We’re going to be talking about comparison, and today’s tip is to stop and drop the comparison!
Watch Video: “12 Days of Tips for the Holidays: Day 9: Drop the Comparisons”
Read Blog: “12 Days of Tips for the Holidays: Day 9”
I know that seems easier said than done, but first I want you to recognize when comparison is coming up. I think that especially during the holiday season, it’s easy to get in that comparison mode. I think this is exacerbated even more so now because we can go on social media and see how everyone else is doing for the holidays. The posts on all the cutesy things that they’re doing, and maybe you’re feeling like ‘Oh gosh, I should be doing some of these things.’ Notice when comparisons are showing up. You could be comparing within your family or within your group of friends.
Brene Brown has a quote that she puts in her book by Theodore Roosevelt that states that “comparison is the thief of joy.” She expands on that by explaining that when we compare, we remove our joy from a situation because we get stuck in the comparison and not feeling good enough, or not measuring up.
Having this picture of what you should or shouldn’t be and how you’re not adding up is a problem, so acknowledge that and especially when comparison shows up in areas of our life where we really pride ourselves in. Maybe it’s important for me to be a good partner, so that’s something I’m more likely to compare to others because I feel like I can see instances where I’ve been worse or better than other people.
Noticing when you’re comparing, or sometimes even comparing yourself to your past self, especially after 2020 because that was its own animal. Don’t compare who you are now to who you were last or year the year before. What you were doing then was a unique situation.
Today’s tip is to really stop the comparison trap or, at least, just notice when it’s showing up in your life. I hope that was helpful and we’ll continue our 12 tips in the following days, thank you!