DANG IT!
I’m scrolling through LinkedIn, checking out what’s trending in my neck of the woods; you know… making myself a well-rounded professional.
(In other words, avoiding doing stuff I should be doing while I hide from my kid in the bathroom.)
I’m scrolling along, and BAM, there’s the post.
You know what I’m talking about… the one by a friend, colleague or peer. It has the “perfect” picture, a snappy one-liner or a description of something cool that I wasn’t a part of.
It’s a great post. With fantastic people. Doing awesome things.
My first thought is… DANG IT, I want to be there.
Then “Why wasn’t I there?”
Then “Man, I should be doing that.”
Then “Wish I were like…”
(insert feelings of inadequacy)
FOMO (Fear of Missing Out ), envy and social comparison are real, my friends.
Maybe it’s not LinkedIn for you… it could be Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc. I’ve experienced it in multiple formats. It generally leads me to loudly proclaim my intent to remove all social media from my life. Quickly followed by an immediate mental tongue lashing for wasting my precious time and setting myself up for comparison problems.
It generally takes few minutes before I realize (again) that sending blogs or baby pictures by carrier pigeon isn’t going to cut it these days.
While it might sound ideal to ban social media from our lives, if you’re like me, it’s not an option. Our business, kids, family, and friends are online and therefore, social media abstinence is a no-go. We have to find a way to deal with it.
When social media comparison strikes, the urge to try to add more to what we’re already doing is strong because we want to do more of or have what others have. Especially if it’s something we’re not good at, not doing or have never tried.
Once it hits, we start planning and scheming to do all sorts of stuff.
Bob is doing XYZ “I should do XYZ too!”
Geez, I never thought of “XYZ”, I’ll add that to my list of to do’s.
“Everybody is doing XYZ, I NEED to do it too!”
It’s oh so easy to go down the rabbit hole.
But that’s dumb.
And I’ll tell you why.
We cannot run businesses and simultaneously create picture-perfect Pinterest meals, and attend networking events and write blogs and vlog and drive the kids to sports and volunteer at church and sit on three boards, and… and… and…
You get my point.
We can’t be everything to everybody or be a part of everything. We must focus on what’s most important for our business, our family, and our friends.
We must do a few things well.
Before we take on a new project, task, group, etc. we need to ask ourselves am I doing what I need to be doing well enough to add something else? If you can answer that with an honest yes, then go for it. If your answer is no, keep working on the things that need improvement.
Because, if we don’t, we will never be truly great at what we want to do. We’ll end up with a bunch of half-finished, half-hearted things that won’t help anyone and will leave us feeling strung out, stressed out and quite frankly like we aren’t “enough”.
Who wants that?
The world needs more people who are GREAT at what they do. Not more people trying to do everything.
So, the next time you find yourself in the bathroom, binging on social media and scheming.
STOP.
Remember that YOU need to be who you are, doing what YOU do and doing it well.
Now get back to it.
What do you do when social media comparison strikes? Share your ideas in the comments below.