S3E28: Self-comparison week: I don’t feel like they look
Full transcript:
Good morning, happy Wednesday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for those who love languages and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. And every day this week, we are going to be talking about practical things we can do to help us exist in the language learning spaces, to mix with the people, to engage in the content, and to be inspired by other people’s journeys without self-comparison leaving us feeling worse than when we came in.
And today I want to talk about all the iterations of the phrase “don’t compare your behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel”. Because it’s something that we hear so much and when I first heard it, it was so powerful, but the potency has weakened over the last few years through sheer repetition. And frustrations at the same conversations over and over again.
The conversations that say, everyone has a behind-the-scenes. We all have problems, we all have things we hide away, nobody has a perfect life. As though that makes us feel any better about the particular selection of problems and obstacles we have. Or the ones that say “hey, if you want to compare, you’re feeling a bit comparey, you know what you should do? Compare yourself to where you were last year!”. I take a rather dim view of that argument as well.
And not because it’s completely stupid as an idea but just because I find it’s poorly timed. We definitely should document our successes and keep looking back at the progress we’ve made. We definitely should celebrate our wins, as often as we can. But not as an immediate response to feeling inferior to someone else. Because in my experience, that is a surefire way to look back over your year and hate all of it. The inner critic will just tear apart all the work you’ve done and cast a shadow over every achievement there.
But we do need to do something. Because once we start to analyse our behind-the-scenes it really is a bottomless pit of all the decisions we’ve made, all our perceived personality defects and frustrations and rejections and failures and we cannot afford to go there every time someone bright and shiny comes into our lives.
So what I want to offer today is another circuit breaker phrase so that when you are watching content or talking to people that make you feel like they have it all sorted, that make it all look effortless, or reflect back what you think are all your shortcomings, you don’t spiral. And that is,
“I don’t feel like they look”.
We don’t need to analyse this right now. We aren’t going down that black hole. We’re busy.
This doesn’t need to be a huge narrative spinning exercise about what they have and you don’t, or what they’ve achieved, or where you went wrong in life.
You just don’t feel like they look.
It’s just a feeling.
The way you feel might change really soon. I mean, the way they look might change really soon.
It doesn’t need to change the course of your day.
We really don’t need to do this to ourselves, language learners. It’s not facts. It’s not a complete or fair narrative. It’s not a prediction of your future successes or whether you’re going to achieve great things. It’s just a feeling, albeit a powerful one, and it will come and go. So don’t lose faith. You have every right to be proud of where you are and what you’re doing.
And before I go, just a reminder that the doors are open for my 100 Conversations project, where I would love to speak to 100 listeners of the Language Confidence Project, to meet you, to hear about how your language journey is going, and to find out what carving your own path means to you. It’s a really informal 30 minute Skype chat over tea or coffee or whatever beverage you should like to bring, it’s completely free, nobody’s going to try and sell you anything, it really is just a chat, where we can just hang out and chat about languages. If you would like to book a call, I have a Calendly link in the shownotes, and it’s also in my Instagram bio at @teawithemily.