010: Comparison Stacking

>> Scroll down for a free hand lettered PDF download from this episode

Comparing yourself to others keeps you from creating. We all spend way too much time beating ourselves up and thinking about how we’re lacking or how we should be better. This stops us from spending time building, creating and doing the things that we actually enjoy.
But I want you to know that you are amazing, just as you are. We’re all guilty of comparing ourselves to the mom on Instagram with the clean house or the Pinterest perfect birthday party. But I want to encourage you today to center yourself and distance yourself from the trap of comparison stacking.
I made a video and a collage of my 5 Steps to Addressing Comparison.
You can download a free copy of the steps below:
In this episode, I talk about how I realized I was comparison stacking and why we compare ourselves with other people. I discuss paying attention to the things you find you’re comparing yourself (and your worth) to and why you shouldn’t look for your worth in being “good” at certain activities.
What you’ll find in this episode:
A creative memory from last summer
How I realized I was comparison stacking
Why we compare ourselves with other people
How to center yourself so you don’t allow comparing to weigh heavily on you
Why you need to pay attention to what you’re comparing with a lot
Why you should avoid the belief that your worth relies on being good at something
An exercise you can do when you find yourself comparison stacking
Read the transcript of the episode below:
So it's kind of embarrassing to admit that we compare ourselves to other people, especially to strangers on the internet. But I think that most of us do it. So we might as well have a chat about it. This is Episode 10: Comparison Stacking.
Welcome to the Committed to Create Podcast. I'm Lisa Funk and I am so excited to hang out with you here as we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds. I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives. I am so glad that you're here.
Hello. Hello, and welcome back. I'm so excited that you're here. It's summertime and I've got my kids around. So if you hear some little voices sometime during the podcast, just know that I'm over here doing mom life with my kids in the summer. And it's wonderful. So we're just going to embrace it, right. I mean, I come on here and preach all about imperfect creating and so I have to practice what I preach.
So you might hear some kids and we're just going to do it anyway. Before we get started with the episode, I wanted to do a segment called a creative memory.
So this creative memory is from last summer when we were able to travel freely to other countries. And I was able to take my little family on a dream trip and our first stop was London. And I love London. It's such a cool city, so much history, and I knew that I wouldn't want to be parted from my creative supplies, my lettering supplies for too long.
So I packed just a few of our perfect lettering notebooks that we sell in the shop. I wanted just a small notebook that I could easily slip into my backpack or my bag and have with me. And then I brought our perfect pen pouch with the Tombow feud. I find that when I'm writing in a smaller book, or I want to be able to write smaller, I love using that Tombow feud pen because it can write really small. And I liked the hard nib version because I can also do some kind of regular handwriting writing with it and also some brush lettering. And I decided to use that notebook as kind of a little bit of a lettering, journaling documenting notebook.
So I use the Tombow feud and I also use the Tombow dual brush pen, and I use them together to create some lettering, just documenting the different things that we had done in London. So the double Decker buses and some of the meals we had eaten and going to the tower of London and going to some of the different museums and going to even song at St. Paul's cathedral. And I just kind of made a list of all the fun, different things and memories that I wanted to keep in my mind and heart as I looked back on that. And I use lettering as a way to do that. So I brought my stuff with me on the go. 
And one of the things that I love about lettering is that it doesn't take up a ton of space, the supplies don't. And so I could easily take those little notebooks and my markers, my pens, and a pouch, and the perfect lettering notebooks that we sell in our shop fit perfectly inside of the pen pouch that we sell. And so I kept my notebooks and the pens inside of that pouch, I would zip it up and just keep it in my bag.
And when I had a moment or two, I would keep some notes in there and use it as a little journal, but it was a creative journal cause I did my lettering and a few little doodles and illustrations in there too. And it was just a really fun moment to bring in some creativity, even when I was on vacation.
So, I don't know if you are able to do any traveling this summer. I know some of us have been able to do a little bit, even if it's camping or something like that. I encourage you to pack a notebook, bring a pen and doodle or do some lettering or some journaling or some free writing and find a couple minutes to be creative.
I love creating on the go. I love lettering on the go. I feel so inspired when I'm traveling to new places. And I love thinking about last summer when I was in London with my perfect lettering notebooks and my pens, and just documenting some of the places we had gone and really enjoying having that. And I actually posted a picture of those pages from London on my Instagram.
So I will try to link to that in the show notes, if you're interested in what I am describing, but I would encourage you to just try it out and whatever the creating looks like for you, find something that you can take with you or find something where you're at, even if it's a pencil and a piece of paper, just to doodle or sketch what you're seeing.
It's really powerful. Kind of meditative and a beautiful experience. So that is my creative memory for today. 
All right. So to get it to the topic for today, we are talking about comparison stacking and to start out, I wanted to talk about playing with blocks with my baby. My two-year-old. 
I love these nice big wooden blocks. The ones from Melissa and Doug. I don't know if you guys have played with those before. They're so solid and amazing. I think every other toy in our playroom has come and gone, but those blocks have stayed because they are just a classic toy to play with. You can interact with those blocks with any other toy. They're just the best. Okay. 
So one thing that we like to do at the blocks is to stack them as tall as we can, whether it's end to end or, you know, making a wider base. We like to stack them really tall and see just how tall we can get them before they get too wobbly, and they fall down. 
And it's always inevitable that they're going to fall because we're going to keep stacking. We can't help ourselves. We have to keep trying to see how tall we can get the tower. 
So one day I was thinking about comparison and how we compare ourselves to other people. And I realized that I was comparison stacking. And I came up with this concept, thinking about the blocks and stacking all of the positive traits that I saw in other people. And I would grab one block for each person and I would stack them all into being this perfect standard, this unreachable standard. 
So I might take one block from one person who was maybe- I did this a lot when I was a young mom. Uh, I still feel like I am a young mom, but when I was even younger as a mom and had younger kids.
I would see a mom who just had these perfect chore charts. So I would grab a block for her and I would put it in my stack. And then I would grab another block from a mom that I saw who was doing the perfect Pinterest birthday party with the wraps around the water bottles and everything. You know, you know what I'm talking? Yeah. Those water bottle wraps. If you've done them, no shade. I think they're awesome. But I would look at those moms, just with those super themed, really incredible birthday parties they were throwing for their kids. And I would take that block from that mom and I would add it to my stack. And then I would look at a different mom. Always had a clean house. Always every time I stopped by the house was perfectly clean. There were vacuum lines, there was not a crumb on the counter. And I would take that block and add it to my stack. And before you knew it, I had created this impossible standard from all of these different people of what I should be.
I wasn't just looking at one person. I was looking at all of it and saying, I should have perfect chore charts. I should throw these birthday parties. I should be cleaning my house all the time, having a clean house. And you probably noticed that word in there should that word is not normally, or maybe never, a positive thing for me.
I was tearing myself down as I was building all of these blocks, all of this stacking. I was comparing myself to all of these positive traits from other people. I wasn't seeing them as human. I wasn't looking at how hard they had worked to do those things. I wasn't looking at anything else. I was just combining all of the positive things from these other amazing moms and believing that I should measure up that I should stack up that my blocks should stack up as high as all of these other blocks combined.
So I want you to just think about this for a moment. Do you ever do this? Do you ever look around you and take a block from each person that you're looking at on Instagram or in real life? Are you taking those blocks and building up an impossible standard and in the process totally tearing yourself down.
If you are, this is what comparison stacking is. We try to become this impossible standard, or maybe we aren't even trying to actually become it. Maybe we're just thinking a lot about how we aren't it and how terrible we are and how useless we are. And I've been wondering, why do we do this? Why do we compare ourselves to other people at all?
And I think that deep down we do it because we're trying to place ourselves. We are part of this community, this society of so many people, this collective, where we're looking around, trying to figure out where we fit and what we're supposed to do in order to be important in order to be worthy. And we're trying to find our feet.
But the higher we stack all of these things around us, the worse we feel, but I believe that the reason why we're doing this is to truly find a sense of comfort, a sense of assurity, a sense of worthiness. And what's dangerous is if we spend time stacking other people up and it's making you feel bad, your ego, your brain subconsciously is going to try to find ways to stack up your own blocks to be taller than others.
This goes both ways. So what can be equally as dangerous as comparing yourself to someone else saying that you're not good and that you're worthless is trying to find other ways to stack your blocks so that you feel better. You might find yourself saying something like, oh, I'm so glad I don't have that issue. Or I'm so glad that I don't care about that. Or I'm so glad that I don't do the things that that person does. And even though you don't mean to be making someone else feel bad, you know, they don't, they're not hearing you say this. This is just something you're saying in your head or maybe to a significant other or to a friend, but your brain is going to try to find ways to stack your own blocks higher in order to feel worthy and important.
So basically when your brain is concerned with stacking at all, it's going to do it in both ways. So if you're worried about stacking up everyone else's blocks and trying to compare yourself to those, your brain is also going to want to stack up your own in order to make yourself feel better. So when you're tempted to compare yourself to someone else, your brain is going to want to stack your own blocks to make yourself measure.
So you might hear your brain saying something like, well, yeah, she's really good at that one thing, but then that means she doesn't spend as much time doing that. Other thing that she really should be doing. 
This isn't helpful. We keep comparison stacking to find our worthiness footing, but stacking others or ourselves doesn't work. It's not helpful. And it doesn't matter because there is no trophy for stacking higher. We don't find our worthiness from accomplishing things. We don't find our worth from all of the Pinterest parties and the chore charts and the clean house, which are just the examples that I've mentioned before. 
So then we have to ask ourselves, how can we center ourselves so deeply in our worth that we don't feel the desire to compare or that we don't allow the comparing to weigh so heavily on us? And I think that this is a really important concept to understand I'm going to do another whole episode about this, but we are all born with our worth. It's not something that can be changed. It's not something that we can gain more.
And so many of us spend our lives chasing it, trying to get more of it. And so when we compare ourselves to other people, it's like this gauge to see how much worth do we have, how important are we? Are we loved? Are we valuable? And the truth is that we already are valuable. And lovable and amazing. I like to think about what kind of a life would I be living if I didn't have anyone else to measure against if I didn't have any neighbors, any friends, if I wasn't paying attention to what kind of things they were doing with their kids or what they were making for dinner, or if they were the ones making dinner or they were driving a certain car or going a certain place. What would I want to do with my life? If I wasn't comparing myself to anyone else? 
I think this is such a valuable question to stop and to ask yourself. And so I'm going to ask you right now, what would your life look like if you didn't have anyone else to compare it to.
If you didn't know what other people were doing, what would your life look like? So I think that most of us can agree that for the most part, comparing doesn't make us feel better. It doesn't help us to achieve what we want in our lives. 
I know that for me, comparison often makes me feel like I should just stop. That I should just quit because so-and-so is doing it better than I am. They're doing it faster than I am. I'm never going to be able to measure up. I'm never going to be able to do it the way that they are. 
But if you can see in my, in my thoughts in my thought process, that I'm focusing on my worth on my value and that I'm worried that I'm not going to be able to do something as well as someone else means that I'm a failure.
I just want to suggest a possibility that the process and the experience of what we do in our lives could be more important than how fast we do it, how much we do it and what that even looks like. For all of us, it's going to look a little bit different and that's okay. 
So I have a few tips for us today.
And the first one is to be aware that you are even comparing. I know this sounds really basic, but it's really funny that sometimes we can be comparing ourselves to other people without even realizing. Because I would say to you yet, comparison's not healthy. It's not useful. We shouldn't do it, but then I'm doing it without even realizing that I'm doing it.
So I remember one time I was struggling and I had a friend come over to my house and she was kind of listening to me, you know, talk about my struggles and everything. And I started talking about how I wasn't a good mom and I wasn't like so-and-so, who was so attentive to her kids. And she was teaching them so much and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And my friend said, uh, you gotta stop that right now. And I was like, stop what? She said, stop comparing yourself to her. And I was like, what? I hadn't even realized that I was comparing myself. I just thought that I was evaluating what I should and shouldn't be doing. And that I was measuring how well I was doing as a mom.
I didn't realize that I was totally sucked into comparing myself to other people and basing my worth on that. I can tell you that it wasn't healthy. It wasn't making myself feel better. It wasn't making me take action. Some of us might look at it and say, well, comparison's important because you know, then it pushes us to be better for me.
When I start comparing myself to other people, it mostly doesn't make me take any action at all. And if it does, it's not action that I like. It's not action in a way that I feel good about it. It's action that feels forced and striving and it doesn't feel good. 
So that story of my friend coming over and pointing out to me that I was comparing myself is really powerful because it's just so easy to be on default in our, in our minds and to not realize that we're even doing it. And it can be so damaging, especially for those of us who are hard on ourselves who have that little mean voice in our head that sometimes likes to tear us down. 
My second tip is to pay attention to what you tend to compare about when you're looking on Instagram or when you're, you know, talking to friends or hearing about someone or whatever it might be.
What are the main topics? What are the trending topics that you tend to compare about? And these are the things that you would be talking to your mom about, or your husband, or a friend that come up a lot. Like maybe you're talking about so-and-so's clean house a lot or their kids or their kid's behavior or their artwork or their work or whatever.
It might be pay attention to those topics that come up for you a lot when you are comparing yourself. Sometimes for me, I noticed when people are traveling a lot because I love to travel. And so I think about, oh my gosh, that looks so amazing. Look at how they're going with their kids. And I'm just being totally honest with you guys about the things that come up for me.
I, however, do not compare myself to people who are running marathons because I don't follow people who are like super into that. And I'm not... I'm lucky if I go for a walk. Okay. I'm not a big exerciser. At some point I might be, but that's not something that I spend a lot of time comparing myself about because I'm just not that interested in it. I'm not looking at it. So it's interesting and informative to pay attention to what topics you tend to compare about. 
Number three, once you have noticed the topic or the person or the thing that you're comparing about, ask yourself this. Is it something you really care about? No seriously, is it something you really care about? 
For me, I would find myself sometimes comparing myself to people who did things that I thought I wanted, but I only thought I wanted it because I thought it was a measure of my success as a human, not because I really truly cared and wanted to do it. And some of those things can change throughout your life.
For example, I used to care more about what I wore and finding cute clothes, and that just used to be something that was really fun for me. And I felt like it was creative and fun. And I just I'm at a stage right now where I don't care as much and it's fine. I don't, I'm not interested in spending a lot of time and energy and money on dressing super cute. I am not a fashion blogger. This is not why you follow me on Instagram or take my courses. It's not because I'm teaching you about fashion, It's because I love lettering. Right. So I just had to realize when I was comparing myself to people who were dressing really cute, this isn't something that I'm super interested in, at least not right now in my life.
Another example is someone who has a perfectly clean house all the time. If I ask myself, is this something I really care about? I might tell you I feel bad because my house isn't as clean and their house is clean, but guess what? When I really think about it. I don't want to clean my house all day long. I don't want to follow after my kids and pick up the toys right after they've touched them and put them back in the right spot. I don't want to spend a ton of time vacuuming multiple times a day or whatever it might be. I like to keep a pretty clean house, but it's not something that I want to spend a ton of time doing. It's not a super high value for me. 
So that's really helpful to know that when I start comparing myself to someone who has a clean house, I can remind myself that that isn't something that I actually truly want. If it were, I could spend a lot of time and energy and possibly money, if I want to hire someone to help me have a clean house.
Now this step, number three, asking yourself this question if this is something you really care about, can sometimes be a clue that there is something that you care more about and that you want to spend more time on and that you want to include in your life and be more intentional about in your life.
So for example, if you saw someone that had a clean house and you were like, you know what, I think I'm comparing myself to them because I really am interested in keeping a tinier house. And I want to do that. I want, I want a clean house. 
Or if you notice that someone is really into watercolor and you're like, oh, they're so good at watercolor. And you ask yourself, is this something that I really care about? Then maybe you're going to say yes, I actually really do want to get more into watercolor or art. So I am going to be intentional about including that and learning that in my life. 
Now, I will always kind of caution you that sometimes I think that when we're comparing ourselves to others, it can be a clue to things that we might actually be interested in if we ask ourselves this question, but we want to be careful not to base our worth in it. If you see someone that's really good at watercolor. And you say, well, I just want to be someone who's accomplished, or I want to be someone that gets accolades or appreciation may be that they're getting that's different than saying that looks really fun. I want to be someone who has the experience of doing that. 
Do you want the experience of cleaning your house a lot? Do you want the experience of doing a lot of lettering or water color? Do you want the experience of teaching your kids how to clean or cook or what, whatever it is, these are just some of the things that have come up for me, but, but it might be something about finances. It might be something about occupation. Do you want the experience of doing that? If you do then follow that, follow that little clue that you kind of have some passion there that you have some interest there, but don't make yourself believe that your worth lies in being good at it. 
Because remember from all of my other episodes, we're not going to be good at things right away. And so if we're just wanting to feel important and valuable that isn't how we're going to get there. We can feel important and worthy and valuable right now because we're human and we're on this earth and we are all divine and amazing right now, as we are. If we're interested in trying other things, focus on the experience of doing it, not because it's going to make you cool or enviable or a better person.
Okay. So after you ask yourself, question number three, is this something you really care about? And again, you might realize it's not something you care about, or you might realize that it is something you want the experience of doing either way. What you want to do at that point is reframe the way that you think and talk about it.
Instead of saying, oh my gosh, her house is always so clean. I'm such a disaster. I'm such a mess. If you realize that the answer to this question is that you do care about having a clean house, then reframe it, stop comparing and take that clue and reframe it to say. I want to work on having a tinier house and this is how I'm going to do it, and this is what I'm going to work on.
And I want it for me and I want it because I like the feeling of having a clean home. And I want a place where I can feel, you know, focused on what I'm doing or whatever it might be. And if you decide that you don't actually care about having a super clean house, like I did, I can say to myself, oh, I actually like having a house where I'm not super stressed about some crumbs on the floor or some toys being out there is not a right or wrong way to do it. It's not better and right to have a perfectly clean house all the time. It's not better or right to let your house get messy and let your kids make messes. Neither one is right or wrong. You get to decide what you want to do, what you want the experience of and not compare to other people.
Because what we don't want to do is to keep comparing ourselves to other people on default. Our brain is going to do this without us even realizing it. And it doesn't feel good because we will never catch up to 20 million different people doing 20 million different things that's not possible. And there's no real point in it.
Anyway, one of my favorite authors and leaders is Lara Casey, and she has a quote that says comparison isn't just the thief of joy. It's the thief of everything. If you're comparing your business, work, kids, marriage, finances, spiritual maturity, smarts, insert, whatever it is for you, to any other human being on this earth, you will continue to chase your tail and you will miss your life.
She says, keep your eyes on your own purposeful path. 
So, if you want to work on your marriage or you want to improve your finances, or you want to invest time into your spirituality. Wonderful. But keep your eyes on your own path. Start fresh with a blank slate. I just want you to take out all the shoulds, take out all the comparisons and think about what you actually care about. What you actually enjoy what you actually want for your life and focus on that and then know that your brain is going to compare itself to other people. 
If you're anything like me, you'll probably still find times when you think, oh, they're so good at that. Or why couldn't I be better at this? And what you want to do is just make sure that you're catching yourself.
Catch yourself. Anytime you start comparison stacking, stacking up all of these traits of other people, expecting yourself to measure up to some impossible standard and know that your worth will not ever change. Even if your habits or behaviors do.
 So even if you say, I want to throw those Pinterest birthday parties, or I want to, you know, bake a fresh baked treat for my kids every day when they go home from school or whatever it might be, even if you were to try to do all of the other things and stack up just as high as that impossible standard, your worth will not ever change.
It's already what it is. You're already important and amazing. Now, if you see something that looks or sounds fun, dig in! Do it! But know your reasons for doing it and don't let those reasons be so that you can stack up your own blocks. 
So right now I want you to repeat after me, you're going to think this is so cheesy, but I just want you to try it.
And if you have people around you and you're kind of embarrassed, do it in your head, but when you get by yourself or where you feel comfortable doing it, I want you to say it out loud. Okay. I am amazing right now just as I am. Okay. Let's say it again. I am amazing right now just as I am. Now, if you want to take it one step further, you can repeat this next phrase as well.
I can love and appreciate others without comparing. So that means that you don't need to stack yourself up over anyone else and justify why you do things the way that you do and why that needs to be better than the way they do it. And you don't need to make yourself feel bad because some people do things a different way that you might think initially could be better.
We can just allow things to be. And when you find yourself tempted to compare, tempted to put yourself down, to believe that you should be different, remind yourself that you are already worthy. You are already amazing and ask yourself, is this something that sounds fun? Is this something that I would enjoy the process of doing?
If not, then it's not, for me, it's not my cup of tea or at least not in this phase of life and I can let it go. But comparing ourselves to others keeps us from creating. We spend so much time beating ourselves up and thinking about how much we're lacking and how we should be better, that we don't spend the time building and creating and doing the things that we actually enjoy.
So I want to encourage you today that you are amazing right now, just as you are. Creating is for fun. It's for the process. It's not to build us up into some version of ourselves that's better or that's more important or more worthy. We are already wonderful and important and amazing right now in this moment.
If this has resonated with you, I would love to hear from you in a review on iTunes. I love hearing from you in those reviews and it's a great way to help share the show every week I share one and I am going to share one right now. And don't forget if I read your podcast review here on the podcast, you get to email me at hello@handletterdesign.com and then you get to pick any one of our online lettering courses for free.
So go ahead and leave a review. Today's review is from Kel bell Murphy 0 7 1 9. And she says, "I am so thankful for finding this podcast. As a therapist, I feel like she does a great job of combining honesty and acceptance while also challenging us to look towards improving our thinking and our lives. I needed the reminder that self-care isn't selfish and we are created to be creative."
Thank you so much. I love hearing from you. I love hearing what you are doing, what you're creating. I hope that you'll take some time to create even this summer. Like I said, if you're interested in lettering on the go, I'm going to link in the show notes to our perfect lettering notebooks, because they have that thick, smooth, amazing paper for lettering, and they're just the perfect size to take on the go.
And also our pen pouch starter kit because it fits those notebooks right inside of it. And it also has three of my favorite brush pens. So you can check those out too. If you're interested in just having a great little pouch of lettering goodness, to take with you on the road or wherever you could be getting away to, even if it's just a weekend of camping. 
I am so grateful to be here during the podcast with you. I love hearing your thoughts, make sure to come follow me over on Instagram at hand lettered design and join the conversation that we'll be having this week about comparison. I'd love to know what you thought of the podcast.
I'm just so glad that you're here and I am learning right along with you. I hope you have a great day and I will talk to you next week.
Links:
Perfect Pen Pouch Starter Kit
Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen
Tombow Dual Brush Pen Art Marker
Instagram post about lettering in London
Melissa and Doug Blocks & Building Sets
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Jennifer L. IN LOVE!! What a perfect idea! I am a plant mama too, like Lisa. I also manage a great deal of anxiety. I got into lettering a couple years ago as a creative outlet and discovered a multitude of treasures in the lettering community! This book that Lisa created with her daughter is just perfection! It's all the feels for me! Thank you both!!!
Cinthanie C. EXCELLENT BOOK! I really enjoy taking a minute each day to slow down and apply my hand to something that is not only emotionally supportive but relaxing and fun to do!! The mantras for everyday are very helpful for me. Thank you for your work and bringing such a high quality product into my life!
Daily Mindful Lettering Kit: Live With Love

Daily Mindful Lettering Kit: Peace & Calm

010: Comparison Stacking

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046: Removing the Pressure

045: Creative Constraint
