The Comparison Trap – Measuring Ourselves Against Unrealistic Expectations

Have you ever been genuinely proud of something you've accomplished... only to have that feeling disappear the moment you compared yourself to someone else?

In this deeply personal episode, Johanna shares a real-time experience of falling head-first into the comparison trap after reaching a meaningful podcast milestone. What started as a celebration quickly spiralled into self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and some uncomfortable questions about worth, success, and why comparison can feel so painful.

Together, we'll explore:

✨ Why social comparison is a normal part of human psychology
✨ How our brains are wired to seek belonging, approval, and status
✨ The surprising role advertising and marketing have played in shaping our definition of success
✨ Why social media has amplified comparison to unprecedented levels
✨ How comparison can become the "broken mirror" through which we view ourselves
✨ Practical ways to reclaim your sense of worth and define success on your own terms

If you've ever wondered whether you're doing enough, achieving enough, healing fast enough, or measuring up to everyone else's highlight reel, this episode is for you.

Because maybe the problem isn't that you're failing.

Maybe you're using someone else's scorecard.

Resources & Links

🌐 Website: Transformative Journeys

🧠 Free Resources:

• Essential Resilience Toolkit 
• Bounce Back Blueprint 
• Essential Grief Toolkit 
• Insights for Navigating Grief 
• Stress Whisperer Toolkit 
• Mindfulness Resources 

☕ Support the Podcast: https://buymeacoffee.com/transformativejourneys 
 
Come Say Hi on Instagram: @transformativejourneys.johanna

🎶 Music: “Back Roads” by Will Harrison, via Epidemic Sound.

🛑 Disclaimer: Johanna is not a therapist, just a human sharing lived experience.

✨ "I'm just Johanna – a fellow human being on my journey through this thing called life, and your guide on this transformative journey."

Transcript

[Music Fade-In]

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Intro:

What if I told you that this was one of the most painful episodes I’ve written so far?

Not the most painful thing I’ve ever been through by far - not even close - but the most painful in-real-time experience I’ve talked about so far here on the podcast.

It opened an internal conversation – and some really hard work – that I wasn’t expecting… 

And once I opened that Pandora’s box? The “oh f*ck” moments came rolling out and spilling across my journal like a bunch of “Smarties” when you forgot you already opened the box before you pick it up.

 I’m going to be talking about my real-time experience around falling into the pit of the Comparison Trap… my thoughts around defining success for myself… and really, why it matters to all of us.

Because I think that everything most of us think about what success is… is not only dictated by things our brain and nervous system aren’t necessarily equipped to always view rationally… and might just be completely wrong.

And the trap is real.

The self-proclaimed success stories splashed across our feeds – that may or may not actually be true...

The curated highlight reels and inflated self-aggrandizements on social media…

The picture-perfect photos and videos…

And the – let’s face it – sometimes inflated success metrics shared on our social feeds…

They aren’t necessarily designed to motivate you.

Many of them are designed to make you feel inadequate.

Not successful enough.
Not attractive enough.
Not productive enough.
Not healed enough.
Not wealthy enough.

Because if they can convince you that you're lacking something...
Boy, they can usually sell you just the thing that promises to fix it."

And we just keep scrolling to the next thing that will make us feel like we need to be better-smarter-thinner-MORE – than we are right now.

And I get it.

Because I very recently fell head-f*cking-first into the comparison trap in a pretty big way.

And it felt shitty.

Not because I didn't know better.

But because knowing better and feeling better… they’re not always the same thing.

So today I want to expose the truth about comparison…

Share some insights…

And talk about a few things that can hopefully help you start to reclaim your own self-worth – as opposed to basing it on someone else’s system of measurement – and… to redefine what success means for you.

So let’s dig into that.

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Podcast Intro

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Welcome back to Transformative Journeys with Johanna! I’m your host Johanna – and whether listening in while you’re on your evening walk… keeping me company while you fold your laundry… in your truck during your commute to work… or somewhere in between… I’m glad you’re here.

So this week, you’re getting a front row seat to another one of my existential crises lol.

Another one of my “What the f*ck just happened here?” moments that I decided to unpack and excavate the shit out of – while I’m right here in the messy middle of it.

… Well… sort of… By the time this episode drops, the crisis will have happened about a month or so ago LOL.

And just so this really lands for you…

I was in the middle of what should have been a really proud moment for me…

And fell head f*cking first into a nice, deep, comparison trap.

Not just a run-of-the-mill… “Oh wow, she has a nicer kitchen than me”… or even a “Geezus, how does she keep her figure at our age?” comparison trap…

Nope. Not for me. Mine was kind of like toppling head-first into a full-blown “Am I good enough?” chasm and having someone emptying a dump truck of “Who do you think you are’s” and “They are better than me’s” in on top of me.

It quietly and unexpectedly highjacked my nervous system.

Made me question my self-worth.

And had me wondering if I should even be bothering to do this because I don’t seem to be “crushing it” the way other podcasters are.

Oh – and it poked my Imposter Syndrome with a giant pointy stick so it came scrambling out of the attic screaming “Well what do you expect?!! Who do you think you are?!!!”.

Yeah.

That kind of comparison. 

And here’s a little secret. I had started to draft an idea for an episode on “comparison” months ago. And this?

This is NOT the episode I had planned.

But a few weeks ago, I hit a milestone with my podcast.

Now… before I get deeper into this… understand that the podcasting world is a very weird one LOL.

And maybe even more so for someone like me who jumped feet-first – and blindly – into it… with no experience in anything that you need to do to produce a podcast.

So in one part of my brain – I was genuinely excited.

I had hit 750 downloads after a year of building this tiny little indie podcast by myself.

And that really did feel meaningful to me.

I’ve poured an unbelievable amount of time and energy into this show.

Writing.
Researching.
Recording.
Editing.
Creating social content to go along with the episodes.
Learning tech.
Second-guessing myself.
Talking myself into continuing.
Talking myself out of quitting 😄

I had been refreshing my stats like it was a slot machine for the previous few days… waiting… waiting… waiting…

So when I hit that milestone, my first reaction was:
 “Yay! We did it!”

And then…

I opened social media to share my “success story” in a Facebook group I’m in for podcasters…

And suddenly I was scrolling through post after post from people celebrating:

“10,000 downloads in three weeks!”
 “50K in six months!”
 “Monetized in my first 30 days!”
 
And I could feel the excitement being sucked out of my like someone had punched a hole in my little balloon of happiness.

One second I’m proud and excited.

The next – I’m questioning everything about what I’d worked so hard on for the past year.

Now… let me give you a little extra insight into this reaction…

Because what fascinated me afterward – when I started my excavation through the shit-pile – wasn’t that it happened.

Or even that I was comparing myself.

It was HOW F*CKING FAST it – and the downward spiral - happened.

Like… seriously fast. Alarmingly fast. 

It was like someone installed a nitro-fired engine in my limbic system that took it from “This is meaningful” to “Who do you think you are?” in zero-to-sixty in about 10 seconds flat.

Which was a weirdly humbling experience at the same time…

Because I literally talk about this kind of shit here on the podcast all the time.

I understand how cognitive distortions can creep in.
I understand why social comparison was an important part of our evolution as a species.
I understand how easily our nervous systems can get highjacked.
I understand self-worth traps – because I frequently trip over them… fall into them… and occasionally even manage to jump right over one… I get them.

But do you know what?... Apparently my limbic system looked at all of that stuff and said:

"Oh… That's adorable… 

Here – try this experience on for size."

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that because I know… kind of know all that stuff… that I dealt with it well either. 

It fit about as good as the size 4 jeans I wore 20 years ago would now.

If you know… you know…

And I’m going to give you a little peek into my head at the time (poor you…), because it’s something I actually wrote down and saved… you might find interesting.

Some of you might think, “Ahh… I get how she felt that way…”

And some of you might think, “Hmm… she can be a bit of a bitch sometimes…” (And yes – I can).

So… The logical 'angel' on one shoulder was saying, 

"Just celebrate it. You're doing good and this is an awesome milestone for you, so stop comparing yourself to anyone else. Be happy for them - be happy for you." 

But… The evil little 'devil' on the other shoulder was saying,

"Stop thinking you're ever gonna be Mel Robbins or Steven Bartlett - you're not important enough… you’re not good enough. And besides most of those people in that FB group are probably full of shit." 

(And no - neither of those two thoughts felt very nice at the time…).

So there I was… spiralling even deeper into the messy middle of a really shitty, all-or-nothing, success-or-failure pit… minimalizing all of the hard work I do to put out good content as a tiny, little show in a “sea of perceived greatness”…

And realizing that just because I understand a bit of neuroscience and psychology… and actually try to internalize and put into practice all of the cool stuff I’m learning here as I go… doesn’t give me some kind of super-powers… make me immune to all of this stuff… or mean that I don’t have to work on my resilience every single day.

I personally my friends…? Am a real-life work in progress – just like all of you.

So. I think a big part of the problem isn’t specifically social media. It’s kind of bigger than that. And the truth is that it’s been going on way longer than social media has been around.

The world most of us live in, is what I think of as a smarter-better-thinner-prettier system.

A system that whispers from every direction:

• do more 
• be more 
• achieve more 
• monetize more 
• heal faster 
• look younger 
• be thinner
• become more successful 
• be more productive 
• drink greener smoothies 😄 

And if you AREN’T doing all of those things?

Well… apparently you’re behind.

… but we can sell you exactly what you need to get you there… as long as you still do the work.

It’s f*cking exhausting. And really took a downward turn (sorry for the pun) not long after the turn of the 20th century.

Before that, marketers sold products by focusing on their features… their utility… the cost/benefit comparisons for it… and the real, practical benefits of the product.

All that started to change when a guy named Edward Bernays entered the marketing game. And stay with me here, because this isn’t just a foray into some research rabbit hole I fell into (yeah… I fall into those traps too…). It’s a really cool story about a guy who completely revolutionized advertising and public relations.

So Edward Bernays is actually regarded as the “pioneer of public relations”. The way he pulled human psychology into not just marketing campaigns, but also political campaigns, was a radical change from the way things had always been done.

Just to give you an idea of this guy’s genius…

Up until the early 1920s, it was taboo for women to smoke in public. One of the tobacco companies realized that this was a serious flaw in market share capacity. He hired Bernays to change that taboo. That happened to be what’s considered to be one of the most successful campaigns in history. He contacted a psychoanalyst who told him that feminists considered cigarettes “torches of freedom” – then built a strategy (with the help of a female friend) where a group of women’s rights activists would light “torches of freedom” during their march in the New York Easter Day parade in front of a (pre-notified of course) group of eager photographers, and that was printed in the New York Times on April 1st 1929 with the title: "Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'".

He was also the brains behind convincing the American public that water fluoridation was safe and beneficial to human health, and associating bacon and eggs with a healthy breakfast.

This was the beginning of the shift toward selling identities instead of selling products that we see everywhere around us today.

We’re not buying a new car – we’re buying ‘coolness’ or success. 

We’re not buying skincare and personal care products – we’re buying desirability.. or even trying to buy youth.

We’re not buying a course or workshop from someone advertising on Facebook – we’re trying to buy the promise that we'll finally become the person we think we're supposed to be.

And then feeling inadequate when our success doesn’t seem to measure up to theirs – so we go in search of another training package.

And if you're constantly exposed to messages suggesting you're not successful enough, attractive enough, productive enough, wealthy enough, accomplished enough...

Wow. That’s really good for business.

Because when we spend years exposed to constant messages from companies or people who profit from making us feel inadequate...? 

Eventually comparison stops being something we do – and becomes the broken mirror we look in, and view ourselves in, every day.

And here's the part I really want you to hear:

There is nothing wrong with you.

It’s all based in evolutionary psychology and how our nervous system is wired.

We naturally compare. We did it thousands of years ago when we lived in scattered little tribes to find our place in the hierarchy.

And we are wired to seek belonging, status, and approval – and fear rejection.

And a brain that’s wired to compare itself to 50 people in a village, isn’t really equipped to deal with it on the kind of scale it has to now due to television, magazines, and social media.

The problem isn't that we compare.

We have ALWAYS compared.

The problem is that we now live in a world that figured out how to commercialize comparison.

Bernays was just the first of many to demonstrate how powerfully human behavior can be influenced by appealing to emotions, identity, and unconscious desires rather than logic – and how to cause it to recalculate what we see as our worth based on that.

So now instead of comparing our kitchen jealously to our neighbour’s… Or how much better we look 25 or 30 years later than the high-school cheerleader who walked around with her nose in the air… (Tell me that bitchy little moment is not just me… lol)

We’re comparing ourselves every day against: 

• celebrities and influencers
• airbrushed and edited – or even AI created - bodies 
• displays of wealth, and curated lifestyles 
• self-promoted success stories and transformations
• carefully staged authenticity and fake productivity 
• and bunch of complete strangers whose real lives we know absolutely nothing about. 

And somehow…? We now treat all of that as if it’s normal.

And… even if we KNOW it’s curated… our nervous system responds way faster than logic does with, “Everyone is doing so much better than me.”

And hey – I’m not saying that there’s nothing but a bunch of liars online. 

I’m there! And ya – I don’t post my most gnarly, bad-hair, fat-clothes-day pictures there either… 

But I AM saying – you don’t know what’s really going on in the life behind that picture-perfect post or reel.

And at least some of them? I’d be willing to bet, are just full of sh*t.

My smart, logical brain eventually reminds me that I’m comparing other people’s presentation layer with my messy middle… uncertain… full of self-doubt… jiggly bits… and real life.

But its not nearly as quick as Imposter Syndrome who seems to be able to escape from the duct tape and attic to scream in my ear.

I may have a bit of insight into why.

But that knowledge doesn’t come creeping out of the woodwork until later.

I think… beneath most comparison is something deeper.

It’s not really about metrics… or likes… shares… or download numbers…

Joy and worth and fulfilment can’t be measured in numbers.

But when the culture we live in constantly blurs the lines between followers and significance… downloads and value… views and importance…

We’re moving toward some pretty dangerous psychological territory.

Whether we’re creators… business owners… teenagers… parents… professionals… or just real people living real lives… 

We’re quietly absorbing the belief that if our reality doesn’t measure up to all of the staged and curated content we see… we aren’t enough.

I had to kind of ask myself… “At what point are you going to just let yourself feel proud of what you’re doing – without any ‘buts’…?” (Brene Brown always says “get your “but” out of there – and I try to remember that – maybe not before I trip and fall into the comparison trap… but at least once I land.)

Without needing to be “as good as…”

Without going viral…

And defining success based on what is meaningful for me, and what I’ve accomplished.

Helping people.

Personal growth.

Consistency.

Building something that I hope helps other people.

And I’m going to talk a bit about some of the mindset shifts I’ve had to work on while I was trying so hard to separate… I guess, scale from substance.

⬇️Mid-roll⬇️

Shifting gears for just a second here…

Not to sell you shit. I don’t have anything to sell LOL. (But hey – if you ever come up with an epic idea for swag you’d love to see related to this show… I’m all ears 😊)

Did you know that there’s a blog version of every podcast episode?

Yup! If listing isn’t usually your thing… or you’d just like a slightly different take on what we’re talking about today – head over to my website.

You’ll find a link in the show notes.

There’s lots of other cool stuff to explore there too. 

Let me know what you think!

Alright...

Let's get back into it.

~~~~

This part of the episode is probably going to be a little shorter than usual…

Because so much of escaping the comparison trap usually happens after I’ve fallen into it – and SO much of it revolves around awareness, mindset shifts and reframing after the spiral has slowed down.

It’s very much a front brain beating my limbic system back into it’s cave and finding the roll of duct tape so I can slap it across Imposter Syndrome’s mouth and lock it back in the attic.

I may cognitively know that success can’t ONLY be measured by external factors.

But when the world around me says that numbers… downloads… and external validation are the metrics we are supposed to measure our success and identity against…

I’ll be honest. It’s an uphill battle.

Some days it’s just a little hill… but other days it’s the Mount f*cking Everest of climbs.

Because the truth is that no matter who you are, there will always be:

someone richer
someone prettier
someone smarter
someone more successful
someone more visible

It’s an unwinnable game. And one I really don’t want to play.

Let’s start with a few things that actually help me.

The first is to try to notice as quickly as you can when the comparison starts. Awareness matters – and the sooner you can start to see it happening, the faster you can put out your hands so you don’t land on your face.

The second is to have an idea already of what your own real measures of success are. Success doesn’t equal worth, and spending some time thinking about what success does equal for you – BEFORE the trap snaps closed around your brain – feels to me a little like having a ladder to help me climb out of the hole I spiral into.

And the third was a hard lesson learned from this experience for me… It’s to celebrate wins BEFORE exposing myself to social media. 

Like… really. And I plan to take this one into other areas of my life too – because apparently my Imposter Syndrome has super-powers that are ignited by unsupervised exposure to podcast Facebook groups.

So if you ever find yourself spiralling into comparison, now I’m going to share one of the really tangible things I did.

I sat there in the muck and ickiness at the bottom of the trap, and wrote out some thoughts around these things:

(And I think I’ve thrown some of these questions around in previous episodes… but they were important for me here)

• Does what I’m doing feel meaningful? 
• Do I think it will help someone?
• Am I proud of what I’m doing and the content I’m putting out there? 
• Does what I’m doing feel aligned with my values? 
• Am I growing myself, as a result of doing this? 

And maybe most importantly…

• Does this still matter if I can’t hear anyone applaud it? 

This week I told you about my recent face-first fall into a Comparison Trap. 

How it felt (sh*tty)… And how even though logically I know better – I still fell into the trap.

But how noticing it – and choosing to excavate my way out of it instead of quitting or staying all bummed out because of things I read that were written by random strangers in a podcasting group, helped me zoom back out, put on a better set of lenses examine what I was feeling with better perspective.

Not perfect perspective. I know I will always find things to compare myself or my podcast to.

But more realistic perspective.

As we wrap up, I want to leave you with this. 

The funny thing here, is that nothing about my podcast changed that day. For good or bad.

That 750-download milestone wasn’t important because of the number.

It was important because of what it represented for me:

Hundreds of hours of work.
Tons of learning.
Showing up – even during a high-load season.
Creating something I’m proud of.
 
But also:

Doubting myself – and continuing anyway.

And none of that magically disappeared just because someone else’s numbers were bigger… or they said they had sponsors reaching out immediately after they launched their podcast.

So from now on, one thing I will be doing is…

Trying to remember that there can be some value in the comparison trap.

Because it’s not necessarily just about other people.

I think it’s also about not forgetting to measure ourselves against our own values.

And that’s priceless.

Thank you for being here with me today.

Come say hi on Instagram @transformativejourneys.johanna or visit my website and say hi there!

If you like a bit more bang-for-your-buck there’s an enhanced version of this podcast on YouTube. On-screen prompts, beautiful visuals, and a more immersive experience. Head over to my YouTube channel Transformative Journeys.

Got an idea that you’d like to hear me talk about? Leave me a message and you might see it in a future episode.

Until next time, this is Johanna, reminding you… that it doesn’t matter if you fall – even if it’s into a comparison trap.

What matters is how well you bounce.

This… is Transformative Journeys.

See you next time!

End note: Just a disclaimer! This podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not replace the advice of a medical or mental health expert. I am not a licensed counsellor or therapist - just a human with a mic and a story of growth and resilience. No degree… no fancy letters after my name... I’m a full-time student at the School of Hard Knocks, University of Life where I figure I will graduate when I take my last breath. In other words, I’m just Johanna - a fellow human being on my journey through this thing called life, and your guide on this transformative journey.