My favorite fitness Vlogger/influencer is, by far, Natacha Oceane. She speaks with a peppy and prim English accent. She uses knowledge from her Bio-Physics degree to make science-based videos relating to health and fitness. At the same time, she talks about her struggles with disordered eating and self-image. Her outfits, hair, and make-up are always on point without seeming like she’s doing the most. She’s the perfect mix of influencer and real person. Polished, but not too polished. Real, but not too real. Watching her makes me feel inspired and inadequate all at once.
I’m sure Natacha Oceane and others Fitfluencers like her don’t set out to make a video or take a photo with the intention of making women feel inadequate. But I often find myself using Natacha and other fitness influencers as a personal measuring stick for my life. The lives of these women are so aesthetically pleasing, so put-together, structured, and carefree all at the same time. There are times when would give anything to feel that put-together.
They work out in matching Gym Shark sets and perfectly braided hair. I work out in a mustard-stained tank top and a matted top knot that desperately needs a wash. When they work out at home, it’s in their swanky London loft. When I work out at home, I’m huffing and puffing in the living room of my mother-in-law’s townhome with no AC. When they sweat, they glisten. When I sweat, I turn into a tomato.
To be fair, this tendency towards comparison isn’t new. It’s not the fault of Natacha Oceane or any other fitness influencer. I’ve been plagued by this desire to compare myself to other people long before YouTube was even a thing. In my life, this compulsion to compare comes along with the disastrous side-effect of never feeling good enough and never, ever being able to measure up.
I never measure up because I’m constantly changing the standard with every video I watch. One minute I want to be lean and athletic like Natacha, then the next minute I want to be jacked like DLB, and the next minute I want to be powerful and strong like Meg Squats. I’m overloading myself with “Fitspo”, and as soon as I open YouTube my comparison brain is immediately engaged. I cannot be Natacha Oceane, Dana Linn Bailey, and Meg Squats rolled into one person. I can only be myself, and that is never enough. Never enough. That feeling rolls around in knots in the pit of my stomach, like an insatiable hunger to become something, anything, other than what I am.
I know you’ve felt that gnawing feeling too. “Never enough” might look like something else to you. For me, it’s fitness content and body goals. But maybe for you, it’s make-up gurus, fashionistas, insta-Moms, or travel-blogging wanderlust addicts that inspire inadequacy. Maybe it’s the couple who sold it all and bought a tiny house. Or maybe it’s just that girl from high school got who got a great job and moved to Manhattan. If you have a social media account, I know you’ve had that moment of envying someone else’s life.
Social media is sneaky because it often doesn’t even feel like it’s inspiring inadequacy. It just feels like you’re looking at cool pictures and killing time by catching up on people’s lives. But you know, deep down, there are accounts you follow that inspire you to compare their lives to your own. Inadequacy grows over time. It starts with “That’s so cool!” and turns into “Oh I wish I could do that/go there/have that” which morphs into “I could never be/do/have that”.
Inadequacy is a slow build. Oftentimes, you don’t even know you’re comparing your life to someone else’s until you look around one day and decide that everything about your life sucks. Suddenly everything about your house is messy and disorganized, your wardrobe is bland and uninspiring, your body isn’t fit enough, your haircut is dated and you desperately need a vacation.
That, my friends, is the feeling of “never enough”. Comparison is like a black hole, once it shows up in your life it seems to consume everything into itself. Once you make a habit out of it, as I have, it can completely prevent you from living your own life. Left unchecked, it can completely derail you and rob you of the calling that God has on your life.
But all is not lost. By making yourself aware, changing some of your habits, and aligning with truth, you can stop focusing on everyone else and begin to run your own race. Comparison is something I need to check daily in my spirit and I’ve come up with a few ways to help you overcome this in your life.
1. Become Aware of Your Compulsion to Compare.
The first step to getting rid of comparison in our lives is to actually realize we’re doing it. We need to be made aware of our compulsion to compare. Without awareness of our thoughts and feelings, we’re just going to get lost in the sauce of “never enough”.
For a long time, I had this overwhelming feeling that my life was trash. I felt that I had wasted it and it would never mean anything. I didn’t realize the root of this feeling was comparison until I was convicted by the Holy Spirit. He drew my attention to Galatians 1:10 where Paul writes:
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I still trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10, NIV
This scripture gives us a phenomenal base to test our actions. Look at what you’re taking in. Look at what you’re posting, liking, and scrolling through, and ask yourself: What is my intention behind all this? Are you just creeping on your old boyfriend to compare yourself to the girl he ended up marrying? Are you coveting that beauty blogger’s perfect life? Are you trying to lift people up and share joy with what you post or are you trying to make people jealous?
Take a breath and honestly ask yourself: What is the intent behind my presence on social media? Humble yourself, be honest, and don’t try to justify or make excuses. Simply ask God to search your heart and show you the ways social media is affecting you. You might be surprised by what comes up, so honor what he shows you, and don’t hop on the defensive. Only by honestly examining the intent of your actions will you be able to notice the areas in which you feel the desire to compare yourself to others and realize the effect that social media might be having on you.
In my life, I would spend hours scrolling through fitness content on YouTube for what I told myself were fitness tips. I never found any new information, but I did always leave my YouTube sessions feeling pretty crappy. But I couldn’t exactly pinpoint it or put it together that it was the content I was taking in that was causing me to compare myself.
I was generally feeling really crappy about everything at this point in my life, and I knew I needed to make a change in the thoughts I was thinking. Romans 12:2 became a constant in my prayers:
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2, NLT
Once I allowed God into my mess to do the work that was needed to change me, I began to examine a lot of the intentions behind things I ritually did. One of these was my YouTube and social media habits. When I began to examine the intention behind my scrolling, I realized that I just wanted to look at the lives of “fit” people so that I could copy what they did so that I could look like them. Only when I was honest with myself I could see that my intent was not “fitness tips”. It was to covet someone else’s life.
I experienced a drastic change in my negative thinking when I allowed God to make me aware of how my actions were fueling my negative thoughts.
2. Clean House on Social Media
Once you realize the intent behind your posting and following habits, you might also realize that you need to start making some changes. Look at the accounts you follow most and take a long, hard look at how they make you feel. If they provide you with legitimate joy, inspiration, or motivation then cool! They can stay. But if they make you feel like you need to buy something, cause you to covet, or create inadequacy in your spirit then they have to go.
For example, once I realized social media was having a negative effect on me, I looked at my social media habits and realized just how much time I was spending on fitness accounts. I noticed that I would hop on to social media looking for “inspiration” but I was really looking to fuel my desire to compare my life to other people. I really wanted to look at people who looked like what I wanted to look like. This was not motivating, it was demoralizing and it kept me from focusing on my own journey.
You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?
Galatians 5:7, NIV
God has a race designed for you. One that only you can run. But we can’t begin to discover our own lane if we’re fixated on the lanes to the left and the right. If your addiction to “Fitspo” is causing you to drift into the lane of comparison, it’s time to get rid of it. Yes, it kind of feels like you’re losing a part of yourself when you hit “unfollow”. But trust me, you’ll be better for it.
3. Start Running Your Own Race
Let’s expand on that last point because it is vitally important in overcoming comparison. God has a race designed for you. One that ONLY YOU can run. God created you with a unique purpose and it’s probably not to get social media clout. So how do you line up to the starting line of your race? How do you line up with your purpose? You ask the one who designed it.
Discovering God’s purpose for your life is a process. It’s not like you just pray for it and one day you understand what your life is all about. It does begin with prayer, but it is a journey of discovery unique to you. More often than not, it’s not an overnight realization but a process of God’s transformative power at work in your life. It can become a gorgeous dance of metamorphosis if you allow it to be.
So, how do we begin to understand God’s calling on our lives? The chances are, you already have some idea of what it is. God gives us spiritual giftings, unique to us, to fuel His purpose for our lives, which is to serve others through the use of those gifts.
“God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.”
1 Peter 4:10, NLT
It’s my guess that there are giftings and passions deep within you that you have written off or stuffed down in the spirit of “not enough”. But we can recover these natural God-given talents by asking the one who gave them to us. We just need to be intentional about seeking Him and allowing Him to speak into our lives.
Create space in your life to allow God to speak to you. Allow yourself to humble yourself honestly before God and make nothing off limits. Bring him all your junk, all your hurt, and all your pride. Acknowledge that there are ways you’ve allowed the world to define your self-worth and your reason for living. Take the step to allow Him to define your life, not the human-made ideas of the world. Just take the step toward Him and he’ll move toward you:
Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.
James 4:8, NLT
Allow yourself to align with God’s truth and ask the Holy Spirit to show you how your loyalties are divided between the world and God. To find out who God says you are, you need to get into His word and allow yourself to be guided by His spirit. Sometimes we need to break from the Bible plans, the mega-church messages, and the Christian authors. All of those things are helpful and they have their place. But sometimes the most meaningful change comes from allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you and expose the truth to you. Still your spirit. Open your heart. Keep seeking. He will show up.
Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8, NLT
Once God reveals to you who he made you to be, hold steadfast to that truth. Don’t allow yourself to look to the left or the right. Know who you are by knowing whose you are. Once you begin to operate in the spirit, it becomes more and more natural to pick out things in the world that can be harmful to you. Stay rooted in the truth my friends, it is the key to your freedom.
Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32, NLT
Walk it Out
1. Next time you flip through social media, open a note in the background of your phone. As you scroll, note your intentions and notice the feelings they bring up. After a while, you may begin to notice a pattern in your scrolling habits and how they affect you mentally. Ask God to show you the areas of your life, both on and off social media, that lead you to compare yourself with others.
2. For one week, commit to unfollowing any accounts on social media that inspire negative feelings in your spirit. When the week is up, you might want to stay unfollowed. You might even be inspired to take a week-long fast from social media altogether. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you if the content you’re taking in promotes Godliness within you or the values of the world.
3. Find a place to still yourself and be quiet for a few moments. Grab your bible, a pen, and paper. Invite the Holy Spirit in and ask Him to bring to light your natural giftings and passions. Ask him to uncover all the things that He’s put in you that you have written off or stuffed down over the years. Write down what comes up.
4. Work Psalm 139:23-24 and Romans 12:2 into your daily prayer life. Using these verses as your guide, ask God to search your heart and point out anything that offends Him. Ask him to transform you by changing the way you think so that you will know His will for your life – not the world’s.
Are you struggling with comparison? Drop me a line in the comments and let’s talk about it. God has a plan for your life – a unique plan that he custom-made for you. Don’t waste any more energy on the comparison, friend. You’re right where you need to be. 🌻
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