Why hasn’t it happened yet? How to Stop Comparison in Its Tracks

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0:38Welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show, where we're going to talk about how to avoid the comparison trap. I don't know about you. Have you ever looked around and wondered, hey, why does it feel like I'm not moving fast enough or doing everything the way I need in order to get the results that I want. Or like, let's be real, even worse, it feels like I'm doing the same amount as other people and yet I'm not getting the results that they're getting. All right. So in order to achieve your goals and get exactly what it is you want, we first have to stop comparing and then focus on things that we can't control.

1:11I'm going to dive more into that in a second. Oh, oh, oh, do I have a question for you? And we're going to start off hot. Have you ever compared yourself to someone? Maybe somebody who's doing what it is that you want to do or somebody who is made an expression of themselves that feels much bigger than the fact that you would give yourself permission to express? Have you ever wondered, why hasn't it happened yet? What am I doing wrong? And why does it feel so hard? If you've ever asked any of those questions, I definitely have to tell you, you're not alone. It is absolutely, totally reasonable for us to ask those questions, but there's a difference of asking and then feeling stuck thereafter.

1:53Now, I've been in this boat plenty of times before, and I'm here to tell you that it's common for business owners to use other people's timelines or other people's results as a measure of what we should do or things that we should have. And I get it. It is an easy trap to fall into. But one thing I want to be very clear. The terrible thing about this trap is that we have no idea how they got there or what they've done. I have come to believe that what we see on social media is not even 1 % of somebody's life or how they run their business. In fact, as somebody who posts constantly on social platforms with so much consistency and with regularity, I am sitting here saying, y 'all, honestly talking?

2:38people don't even know 0.0001 % of my life or what's going on in business. And yet we want to hold our hundred percent lives to somebody else's 0.0001. So let's think of it this way. If you and I, oh yeah, you know, we set out to bake a cake. And then an hour later, you see me with this gorgeous, fully decorated cake. And like, you might be frustrated, right? It's like, all of a sudden you're looking around and you're like, how the heck did you get that cake? Like you might actually be internalizing why somebody else has something that for all intents and purposes, we were all given the same amount of timeline, right?

3:18Like you might be sitting there and maybe you haven't even gone to the store yet for the baking items. And then you see somebody like me having a full baked cake. And then, you know, you're staring at that cake and you're wondering to yourself, well, why haven't I baked my cake yet? And why am I behind? And why I never catch up? And I have to tell you friends, that trap of asking why me, why is it not happening? Those types of statements and questions really get in the way of us doing what we've been called to do. When we waste time wondering why is it not happening for me? Why is it taking so long?

3:57Those are questions that don't have answers. Quite honestly, you will never know why your idealized timeline is not matching with the reality of the timeline. I firmly believe we should ask questions that we know how to answer, not why is this happening to me? We should be asking, what must I learn from this situation? How might I get better? What other examples have I seen of other people who felt a similar struggle and then they found the results that they want? Because at the end of the day, in all reality, you have no idea how that cake ended up in my hands. You have no idea. We were both saying, hey, go bake a cake, right?

4:35And all of a sudden, an hour later, I have a cake. You have no idea how it ended in my hands. Like, let's just be real. That cake could have been baked from scratch. Maybe I spent two years at a patisserie school in France and I learned how to master the skill of making a cake in an hour. Maybe I baked that cake using instant cake mix. Maybe I went to the store and I bought that cake. Maybe that cake was given to me. Or for all intents and purposes, since we're talking on social media, maybe that cake is fake. What happens is you and I were both given a directive the same way you and I might set goals.

5:12And all of a sudden, you look at my cake and you say, why not me? When you have no idea if it took me a decade to learn that skill. as well as you have no idea if the cake that I'm holding is fake. And yet you want to sit there and look at somebody else's cake and saying, I haven't even gone to the dang store yet. So, you know, you might be wondering, well, why are you saying all of this? Like, what does this really have to do with me? And why are we talking about cakes? Well, we can't compare somebody else's decorated cake to our baking supplies. In the same way, we can't compare our life movie to somebody else's highlight reel.

5:50and yet that's a thing that we do. And so I want to come in and I just want to have like a real conversation that the minute I got out of my head about a timeline that I believed, oh, well, it should happen this way. It should happen in this time and it should happen according to all of my dreams and ambitions until I realized that it will never happen the way that I imagined. Because what happens is when we create timelines, we create this idea of when it should happen, But like, let's be real. The vast majority, not all the time, but the vast majority of times when we set a goal and then we ascribe a timeline to that goal, it should happen in three months.

6:29It should happen in a year. And then it doesn't. We beat ourselves up. But then my question that I really want to have with you, let's just have a little bit of real talk is, where did you get that timeline from? Is your timeline normal? Have you researched your timeline? Like the average time it would take for a person to achieve what it is you want to do. And then once you have that average timeline, you have to factor in things that other people might not have. You might be a single parent. You might have three or five kids. You might be a full-time student. You might be a caretaker. You might have a full-time job in addition to a commute where you're trying to get your side hustle on.

7:06All of those things. We say, if we saw somebody else on the internet, oh, look at me, I made this in this amount of time. And then you think, I've been working twice that and I don't have half of that. If that is what we're thinking, let's come correct and let us understand that we're all on our own path and timeline. I have come to believe instead of asking myself, why not me? I ask myself, who must I become to get what I want? What must I learn to get what I want? How must I be patient to get what I want? How can I not celebrate how far I've come in order to get what I want? How can I not look at the milestones and say, wow, the me of 10 years ago is really proud that I didn't give up.

7:50Why can't I think of that? Now, at the end of the day, I know, real talk. It is hard to think this way when everything seems like it's happening for everybody else. It is hard to celebrate somebody getting something you so desperately want and work hard for. That is a higher calling. But the minute we do that, the minute we celebrate the thing we want that somebody else has, it opens our brain for pathways. For number one, us to figure out how we can get it on our own, in our own timeline and in our way. And also develop a group of other people who will not say, why him? Why her? But they will celebrate you the way that you are celebrating somebody else.

8:37when your mind is in control, you're empowered to enjoy the process. I have to tell you that being an entrepreneur well over a decade, there are times in my career, let's just be honest, let's be very real. At the time of this recording, a couple days ago, I woke up and I did a 5.30am yoga class. Now here's the beauty about a 5.30am yoga class. You get up, it's 5.30, it's dark, It's pitch black and it's cold. And then I walked into this heated yoga studio and I was the first person to arrive and I enroll my mat and the room is heating up towards 95 degrees and I'm stretching and by myself in this room, I think to myself, and this was the exact thought that floated through my head is what is this all for?

9:26What is the early mornings? What are the late nights? What What are the financial plannings? What are our ambitions? What are these goals? What are these contracts? What are these clients? What is the diversification? Like, what is this all for? Because at the end of the day, if I were to go back to my college self, my high school self, my junior high self, I could honestly look back and look at that person. And that person would look at me today and say, you made it. You made it. That the person who I was in junior high, in high school, and in college, I didn't have the capacity to dream this big.

10:02I couldn't dream of me sitting in a house. I couldn't dream of me going on vacation. I couldn't dream of being able to not shop at thrift stores. I couldn't dream of not getting donations from our church left on our front porch. I couldn't dream this big. So why, why is it at this point that I seem to be at a point far bigger than my imagination could ever have imagined? And I think to myself, when is enough enough? enough? When will I get out of the comparison trap? And all of a sudden I started realizing the minute I stopped comparing myself, about four or five years ago, I was like, I'm going to make the active decision to stop comparing myself.

10:40And the minute I stopped comparing myself, I opened up time. I opened up energy. I started receiving things. I talked to myself nicer. I started reaching my goals faster because I wasn't wasting any time or energy or bandwidth worrying about why somebody else had something I didn't have. So the question now becomes for all of us, how can we enjoy the process when everything feels like we're running in quicksand? I don't know about you, but I'm gonna let you borrow what I namasteed myself through in yoga. I am enjoying the journey. I am not focused on the destination. I am learning how to play the game.

11:26I am not focusing on how to win the game. Because let's be real. Simon Sinek had this conversation and he posed this question. How do you win the game of business? Is it the most money? Well, if we're speaking historically, every year people are making more and more money. So the person who was the most successful in 2019, are they no longer a success because somebody in 2024 is beating what it is they did? Or were they a success? How does one win at business in general? Is it the most toys? Is it the most money? Most buildings? Most employees? Most profit? Most social? What is it? And at the end of the day, you cannot win the game of business.

12:09You could play it really well because the game is circular. The game goes on. So if we know that us pursuing our dreams and us having this desire to start a business and us realizing that it's a journey and it's a game, how might we enjoy the journey? How might we enjoy the game? Gratitude. That's it. Gratitude is taking the deep realization and this momentous moment that we are the 1 % of the 1 % of the 1 % in this great world who gets to choose to do something. Might not be easy and it might not be simple and it might not be fast. In fact, it will probably be the hardest thing you will ever do in your professional life.

13:00It might be, but having a business is a luxury. Building in a place or economy that empowers you to change your life legacy is luxury. Gratitude keeps you in the place of what I have is enough for now. And if I cannot appreciate what I have now, how can I ever appreciate the things I want in the future? Gratitude, my friends, is a gangster. Gratitude makes you unmessable with. Because when you focus on what you have, it becomes exactly what it is you need. What you have is enough. for now. And if you so choose to pursue more and want more and get more and support others and make this world a better place and be an example that you wish you had and share the information you wish you knew and have conversations with other people who don't seem like they're worthy of your time and yet you make time for them.

14:06When you go out of the way to the person who's sitting in the corner of the room, when you go out of the way to talk to the person who hasn't said much in a while, when you go out of the way to ensure that this game of business that you play is benefited when more people are in the game. Can we not express gratitude that we are in the position to do things that other people have not had the courage to do, that haven't had the wherewithal to do, that haven't had the opportunity to do? Friends, I am here to tell you that my father is an immigrant from Mexico and he has had a dream his whole life to start a business.

14:42My father dreams of a taco stand. And let me tell you, my dad, my dad can make some epic tacos. My dad can make a taco that puts all tacos to shame. I will tell you. And he has this dream of opening Pancholins in Los Angeles, California. My dad is in his seventies and the likelihood of that happening, though not impossible, may not be likely. And so when he sees his children being able to do something that he wished he did, he reminds me of how proud he is. And he reminds me that he took jobs that he did not like so that his children would never have to do that. My father took four, sometimes five jobs at one time so that he gave me the luxury of building upon his shoulders and upon his legacy.

15:33So let us not forget the people who have gone before us that have given us this luxury to do what it is we do How do we stop comparing ourselves? Number one, we make the active decision to simply decide I will stop Number two, we will remind ourselves that this is an active journey And though we are tempted to look at what other people are doing or what they have or the results that we too desire we say in our time, because if I do not quit, I cannot lose. That's a quote by Alex Hermosey that I remind myself often. And number three, we express gratitude for us being able to do the dang thing we so desperately wanted to do.

16:20For those of you who are interested, y 'all big, big, big fan of having these types of conversations. It is always an honor and a privilege to be able to do so and have conversations, y 'all. My name is Jasmine Starr. I am on all social platforms at Jasmine Starr. It is an honor and a privilege for the people who listen to the Jasmine Starr show. It is a podcast that reaches out to people so that we can build a community of people who are willing to, yes, be resilient and get up after we've been knocked down and yes, choose gratitude instead of comparison. I hope you have a beautiful day. Thanks.

16:58Blessings. Bye.