375: Comparison is a Liar: Why You’re Not Behind (Even If You Think You Are) | Live Coaching Session

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 375.

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode. 

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host Amber Brueseke and today you are getting a front row seat into one of my favorite parts of coaching, the Live Coaching Calls inside of MACROS 101. You're about to hear a coaching conversation that I know will resonate with so many of you because we're talking about something that we all experience at some point. Comparison. Womp, womp, womp. Now before we dive into today's coaching conversation, I want to take a couple minutes to set the stage because while this topic might seem very specific and niche, the truth is it's incredibly universal. So in this episode, you're going to hear a conversation I have with Kelly who is feeling behind inside of MACROS 101. She had planned to start right away. Life got in the way as it often does. And now she's caught in that familiar mental spiral of I'm behind. Everyone else is ahead of me. I'm messing this up. And maybe this sounds familiar. I mean you don't have to be in a program or tracking macros to know what that feels like. Because what is really going on underneath is that feeling of comparison. That's the only way that you can tell yourself you're behind is if you're comparing against someone else. And our brain is, is that's normal and natural. That's how our brain makes sense of the world. It's by comparison. But what's happening is you're comparing where you think you should be or where you think other people are and then your brain's comparing that and then telling you, Oh my gosh, you're not good enough. You're not going fast enough. You're not doing enough. You're failing. You're falling behind. And the sneaky part of that is that that comparison isn't just uncomfortable. It's actually demotivating. It gives us permission to give up. It becomes the perfect justification to stop trying. We say, what's the point? I've already fallen behind. I'll never catch up. Everyone else is ahead of me. And then that gives you the justification to quit. This is self-sabotage in disguise.

So today, as you listen to this conversation I have with Kelly, I want to invite you to reflect on this question. Where in your life are you telling yourself the lie that you're behind? And how is that story keeping you stuck? Whether it's in your health, your career, your parenting, your goals, your personal growth, comparison can creep in anywhere. And when it does, it often makes us feel like quitting. But here's the truth. And you'll hear it over and over in the conversation I have with Kelly. You are not behind. You're running your own race. You're on your own timeline and your success isn't about keeping pace with other people. It is about learning how to take the next step in your journey. Even when it's hard, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it doesn't look like what everybody else is doing. So with that in mind, let's dive into this coaching conversation. I hope you'll not just listen with just your ears, but with curiosity about where comparison might be showing up in your life and how it's sabotaging you so that we can get you out of that and we can get you showing up and making progress in big ways. So let's get into this coaching conversation. 

Kelly 04:18

Hi. 

Amber B 04:18

What’s up? 

Kelly 04:20

All right. So I feel like it might take me a minute to get to my, um, my question cause I've been listening to everyone and I really haven't thought about it in a few minutes here, but my biggest issue that I'm having right now is I'm behind in the modules, um, because I had a trip planned and then there was issues and delays and exhaustion and just all the things. And I was supposed to do like the five-day challenge and I was like, okay, I'm going to start it this day in my head. And I know it doesn't make sense. We hadn't set our macros, we hadn't done anything yet, but in my head it was going to be like a restriction thing. And so when I got home I was exhausted and I'm like, no, I'm not going to listen to that today. And then the next day came and I didn't do it. And so then I don't think I did it till Thursday of last week. So, and then I listened to it and I was like, Oh my God, well, obviously like, what am I thinking? I shouldn't have watched this two days ago. So now I've pushed, you know, so then I'm, you know, you said to do seven days and I was like, well, I've got five days whenever I finally sat down to do it. And then you're like, if you haven't done seven days, pause now. And I'm like, come on! I haven't done seven days. 

Amber B 05:29

You’re the worst, Amber!

Kelly 05:30

So then today I, um, so the other thing is, is I work 12 hour a day. So on my days that I work, I have been prioritizing, like I need to do, I don't need to, I choose to, um, meditating and journaling. I'm going through a divorce. There's just so many things that helps me daily. And exercise of some form of moving my body. So on those days I have, and another issue I'm having too, is I'm usually the all-encompassing. I want to do everything all at once. And I have to follow everything to the T and it fizzles out. So I'm trying to learn that what, you know, got me here, won't get me there. So I'm trying, but now I'm just feeling like, okay, I messed, I messed up. I don't know. I miss whatever, whatever we'll call that snafu that I was two days late than what I want to. And now it's pushed me to today. And today I made the priority that I could either sit and do two hours worth of modules, or I can sit and do this call. And I made the decision that the live coaching call was probably the best choice. So one, I'm curious if that was the right choice. And two, how, how do I, I don't want to feel like I'm failing. I know I'm not, but that starts to come in because I'm so much behind everyone. So I guess I just want to know, like, am I, how to make the modules work with my crazy life, with everything, like how to prioritize live calls, modules, like just like, I don't know, help me rest my brain a little bit here.

Amber B 07:12

Fantastic. I mean, great question. Super great question. Um, I want you to finish the sentence for me with whatever comes to your brain just off the bat. Okay. If I'm behind in this program, that means.

Kelly 07:25

It'll take me longer to reach my goals. 

Amber B 07:29

Okay. Why is that? 

Kelly 07:34

Because I'm not getting the information as quickly. 

Amber B 07:38

But like how, like how, how many days behind are you? 

Kelly 07:42

Well, I haven't, right. Well, like I just finished my seven days of tracking. 

Amber B 07:48

Okay. So how many days is that? 

Kelly 07:51

I, I, I feel like I'm a week behind. 

Amber B 07:54

You're like four days behind. 

Kelly 07:56

Okay.

Amber B 07:57

Right. So it maybe takes you four days longer?

Kelly 08:01

Yeah. Yeah. 

Amber B 08:04

Is that okay? 

Kelly 08:06

Yes. 

Amber B 08:07

I mean, and, and will it even take you four more days? Probably not. Because the truth is, is that you're running a different race than everybody else. So like some of these people are going to be done sooner than you. And some of them are going to be done long after you, because we're all running our own race. And I think that's the thing that I really want to reinforce to all of you guys. It's awesome to be in a group like this because there's so much camaraderie and there's so much, yes, me too. And you don't feel alone. And, and it is very easy to do the comparison game. And to look at other people's papers and to be like, where's she at? Oh my gosh. She's oh, she's already in module three. And I haven't even finished module one, right? Like it's really easy to do that. It's it's, and listen, it's human nature. Comparison is how our brain makes sense of the world. So there's nothing wrong with you, Kelly. Like that is very human nature. And you're already starting to notice how devastating it is and how it's not serving you. It demotivates you. It's not like you're like, oh gosh, I'm behind. That's amazing. Let's do it. What do you do? You go, I'm behind. Oh, might as well not do it. Right? So it's not helping you to continue to tell yourself that you're behind and you're not because you can't be behind in your own journey. That's the truth. 

Okay. So that's what I want you to repeat to yourself when you, when your brain starts to come up. Now, listen, I'm pushing a lot of you guys outside of your comfort zone in a lot of different ways. And when that happens, your brain is going to start to freak the heck out. And it's going to say things like to be able to get out of it because it wants to get out of the discomfort. You step outside of your comfort zone. Your brain feels uncomfortable. It starts coming up with reasons why I should go back to being comfortable. And those reasons sound like I'm overwhelmed. There's too much. Gosh, just so overwhelmed. That's a way for your brain to make it okay to go back to being comfortable. I'm behind. Oh, everybody else is ahead of me. Again, it's, it's a way for you. It's a sneaky way that your brain is trying to get you to go back into the comfort zone. Your ability to be successful is directly proportional to your ability to sit in the discomfort, to tolerate it. So when your brain freaks the heck out and says you're behind, I'm overwhelmed. I can't do this. That's a pivot point for you guys, because you can listen to it and you can go back to being comfortable and you can quit and you can give up and you can do all of that. That is an option. Or you can sit in the discomfort and you can say, I'm not actually behind. It's a story that I'm telling myself. I'm not actually overwhelmed. I can choose to take it one step forward. Nothing's going wrong here. Only thing is, is that I'm uncomfortable and my brain is trying to make me more comfortable, but my job is to tolerate the discomfort. That's your job. 

Okay. So you're just exactly where you should be. You're doing exactly what you should be doing. You're tolerating the discomfort. I mean, freak the fact, Kelly, that you showed up to this call and unmuted talk about uncomfortable. Oh my gosh. We'll get it. But talk about like stepping into this comfort and tolerating it. That's huge. And that is why you're going to be successful. Not because you're ahead of everybody or because you're on a certain module or because you listen to a certain lesson, but because you're willing to tolerate the feeling of discomfort.

And listen, if there's one thing I can say, I, I, I kind of feel like I made this like this point over and over in the modules, but I'll make it again. There is no, there's no gold star for finishing the modules. Finishing the modules isn't going to make you magically hit your goal weight. Okay. The modules are there to support your growth. If you're rushing through the content and you are the first one to finish all of them, there's nothing for you. Like it doesn't do anything. The people who get results in this program, aren't the people who keep up with the content. They're the people who implement the content. And even if you only implement one thing, you're going to be ahead of the person who rushes through the content because they're trying to keep up with everybody else, but isn't actually doing anything about it. 

Kelly 12:37

And that's what I think I was trying to do. I was trying to be more intentional with when I sat down, rather than saying I have to do a module today, even though I just worked a 12 hour day and I cannot think straight, but I got to watch one. So I decided for this, I wasn't going to do that to myself on a day. If for some reason, after a 12 hour day, I had energy and I wanted to, but I was just taking that off the table. And then I'm like, Oh, but if I take work days off the table and then, you know, and then you start to spiral and second guess, like what you, you know, had thought. 

Amber B 13:06

So here's my, here's my this is my a thermometer gauge, like reference point in these, in these positions. Cause what I'm hearing you say is Kelly is you're like, I had this situation where I was telling myself I needed to do a module. I stepped back. I thought about it. I realized I was really, really tired and it probably wasn't ideal for me to do it. So I chose not to do it. Okay. Which is going back to that. How do you make a decision? Love it. Now where we get into our head about it, is it like, am I just letting myself off the hook? Is this like a subtle way that I'm like self sabotaging? So here's my, this is my gauge. What is the harder choice? Was it harder in that moment for you to like, let it go of doing the module and, and have compassion for yourself and be honest with yourself and say, I didn't have the capacity to be able to do that. And that was hard. It was hard for you to admit that and hard for you to do that. Or was it harder for the other way? Like that, that's what I'm looking at. And that's when I say like, which one's harder. It usually tells you this is where you need to grow because what it sounds like for you is like, it would have been really easy to just hit play and let it play because then you could check the box and dang, does it feel good to check the box and I'm a box checker and I always do it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. So the harder choice for you is to be like, no, I need to get out of that box checking mentality because that's not actually serving me. And I need to get into the actual integrating mentality. And in order to do that, I need to be well rested and I can't do it at the end of a 12 hour shift. But that's hard because I want to check the box. I want to do it right. I want to be the type A and I want to be the good student. So that was the hard choice, which tells me it was the choice that you needed to make in that moment. That makes sense?

Kelly 14:48

Yes.

Amber B 14:49

You see how I'm like using that as a gauge. 

Kelly 14:50

Yes, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Amber B 14:52

And now some of you are listening to that and you're like, Oh gosh, it's so easy for me to give myself an out, man. I can find all the outs, but all the outs. And you're the one you're like sitting down and actually pushing play. It would have been the harder choice for me because I'm really good at giving myself excuses. Okay, cool. Then that's your heart. Your heart is like in those moments, pushing play and playing through it. Does that make sense? Okay. One more thing. Cause you've been such a good student so far. The first question you asked me is you said I was trying to make a choice between whether I listen to a module, listen to two hours of content or I come to the live coaching call. And I decided to come to the live coaching call. And I'm wondering if I made the right choice. Okay. Wrong question because there isn't a right choice. So many of us operate in this like right, wrong binary. And we work ourselves up to be like, what is the right choice here? Right. I was just working with Margo. There's no right choice in her situation. She can cut. She can maintain. There's no right choice. They're both fine choices, but she gets to step into her position of power and make a decision. And this is what I'm teaching a lot of you guys to do. Stop externally referencing and start making a decision about what do you want? So Kelly, you made the decision to come to the call. That was the right decision for you because you made it. That's it. If you had decided to spend two hours with the modules, that would have been the right decision because you thought about it. You weighed your outcome, you weighed what you wanted to do, and you made a decision. So either one of those is the right choice because you made it intentionally. And that's, that's the key. Cool? 

Kelly 16:40

Yes.

Amber B 16:41

Feeling a little better? 

Kelly 16:42

Yes, I am. Thank you.

Amber B 16:43

Fantastic. All right. Wasn't that powerful? I know many of you listening could probably put yourself in Kelly's shoes, feeling behind second guessing yourself, wondering if you're “doing it right”. But I hope what you're walking away from this episode realizing is that there is no such thing as behind. You're on your own timeline, your own path. And the only thing that you need to be focused on is taking the next step.

Now, if you loved listening to this style of live coaching and you want more support like this, it's time to get on the wait list for my signature coaching program, MACROS 101. This is where we do real coaching. You get real breakthroughs. It's real women learning to trust themselves, real women taking imperfect action in their journey. So if you've ever felt stuck or like you're spinning your wheels, this is the kind of support that you've likely been missing. Inside of MACROS 101, you'll get coaching just like what you heard today to help you push past the mental barriers and really start to see the results that you want. Now doors to MACROS 101 are currently closed, but you can get on the wait list for the next round of MACROS 101 by going to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. I would love to coach you inside there as well. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber. Now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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