EP 13: Turning Comparison Into Creative Fuel for Content Creation

Today I get honest about the comparison trap that keeps so many creators stuck on the sidelines and walk through a simple path to turn that pressure into creative momentum. I name the loop—strategy overload, follower envy, polished feeds—and then break it apart with practical tools that help you create more than you consume without sanding down the parts that make you you.

I start by reframing comparison as a source of structured inspiration. Instead of copying, we extract the elements that resonate—hooks, pacing, analogies—and translate them into our own tone and energy. 

If you’re ready to stop performing and start creating with purpose, this one is your permission slip.

If this conversation helps, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s stuck in the scroll, and leave a quick review to tell us what you’ll post next.

Chapters

• 0:00 Naming The Comparison Trap
• 0:46 Fear Of Posting And Metrics Mindset
• 1:31 Use Comparison As Inspiration
• 2:59 Create Versus Consume
• 4:32 Be You, Not Them
• 6:34 Align Inspiration To Your Voice
• 8:13 Curate Your Feed With Intention

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Sorry, I wanted to, I'm just a little jazzed. I want to dive straight into this video, but let me actually introduce myself. Hi, I'm Liz. Welcome to my YouTube channel. Um, and I I want to talk about what I see and what I see in myself and other people. It seems to be the thing that is stopping us from creating content online. I hear so many people talk about how they want to create content online and what comes up, let's just say it out loud. Comparison. Comparison will kill more dreams than anything else. Well, I think that's a quote or something. I don't know. If I find it, I'll put it right down there. But comparison will kill so many dreams and it stops so many people from doing anything on social media because they look at other people and they just think, I can't. How do I use social media to do the things I want to do when I'm terrified to get on social media? Because every time I get on social media, I start comparing myself to other people. And I do think that there's a way to do that. I know there is because people do that. People create social media content consistently. If you want to create any type of content or have any type of success on these platforms, the things that are thrown in our face are strategy, numbers, and what this person's doing, what that person's doing, and this is what works. And then we never even start because we're constantly looking at other people's content, being like, well, they already did it. Well, what they're doing's working, and I have five followers and they have 10 million followers, and I'm gonna tell you one, you're not crazy. I compare myself all the time to other content creators. But part of being successful on social media is being you. So you might be doing something similar to someone else, but nobody's gonna do it like you. Two, I genuinely think that you can use this comparison as a tool to your benefit to help grow your social media versus letting it be the hindrance that it currently is for you. I am very much like mindset matters kind of person. So can you just take a minute, like genuinely just sit in the fact that you live in an age where you can build, create, do anything you want online. If you want to start a business, you can use social media to help you do that. If you want to be a full-time content creator, you can use social media to help you do that. If you want to be a musician or an actor or a painter or any type of artist or whatever, you can use social media to do that. And while that is so exciting at what social media can do for you, I also understand the comparison makes it feel daunting and overwhelming because there's so many other people using it. So, how can we actually use this comparison to our benefit? The first thing I would tell you is inspiration. Who are you comparing yourself to? Find people that you can relate to, the type of content that you want to create, and don't go and create it like them, but use it as inspiration for your own content. I get it. You get that little bug in your ear and you're like, well, somebody else is already doing it. They're already doing what I want to do. What? Look at fast food restaurants. Are you kidding me? Look at burger places alone. McDonald's, Wendy's, Checkers, Burger King. They are all making burgers and they are all doing just fine. So just because somebody else might have your idea doesn't mean that your idea will not do well. So use other people that are doing something similar to what you want to do to inspire you. Now, I'm not telling you to go and copy somebody verbatim, but I am telling you to look at the stuff that you like that you naturally gravitate towards and be like, oh, that's cool. How can I use that to actually help myself out? Also, are you creating or are you consuming? Because this matters. Yes, I know I just told you to consume. But consuming for like 10 minutes of research to inspire yourself or find some ideas or something that you want to do versus three hours of doom scrolling are two very different things. You have to create. The beautiful thing is creation feels really fucking good. Doom scrolling is fine in the moment. Getting them dope hits, dopamine. I probably went on too long. But getting your dopamine hits, and then the moment you're done, you feel like absolute crap because you spent three hours doom scrolling content. So take a moment when you're looking at content to be like, am I consuming this right now to get some inspiration to create something? Or am I consuming this to check out and not deal with my life? Also, I feel like now's a good time to let you know that I am not preaching at you. I am with you. I'm in the choir about to do my solo. You know what I mean? Like I'm I'm right there with you. I'm in the trenches. I'm not the girl that hasn't figured out. I'm the girl that's figuring it out. Hey, clap queen. Also, remember this: you are not supposed to be like them. Them who? Them who cares? Like you are you. You're supposed to be you. I find myself watching other content creators for inspiration. And just because I like what they're doing doesn't mean I need to do what they are doing. There's someone I follow and I love his content, and he is an Asian man. I was laughing with my coach because why in the world, like, not the not even the fact that he's Asian, he is very like thin and together and always just like perfectly dressed. And I mean, he's a great guy. Love his content. Consume it like a glass of coffee. But if you can't tell, we're not the same. We aren't even in the same vein of how we approach things. I can still respect the hell out of him. I can even use his stuff for inspo sometimes. But how does that inspo translate to me? How does it translate to my voice? I will look at his content and I'll start thinking, maybe I need to tone my stuff down, maybe I need to clean my stuff up, maybe I need to be a little bit more organized. No, because that's not me. And the people who watch my content are here for the chaotic, energetic energy. And that doesn't mean that they can't like my content and his. A lot of this stuff that we're comparing ourselves to overlaps. Do you listen to one musical artist? Do you watch one movie star? Do you watch one content creator? Are you comparing yourself to people that you don't even want to be like? Do you know how many times I've compared myself to people that are like coding or big CEOs or makeup artists or whatever? And I'm not knocking those things, but those are not my things. So sometimes I'll catch myself comparing myself to other content creators, and I'm like, you don't even want to be that content creator. You don't even want to create that kind of content. So that's a great time to ask yourself, am I con do I want to create this content because I want to validate myself? Or do I want to create this content because it actually brings me joy aligns with me? And it's content that I actually want to make. And again, as I'm saying this preaching from the choir, I am the girl that goes and does that stuff. Also, clean up your feed. Stop torturing yourself following accounts that don't help you. I follow very little celebrities because it always makes me feel bad. When I see celebrity content, particularly actors or musicians online who are doing really well or living the life that I want, a lot of times it makes me feel bad. I'm really careful about the accounts that I follow because I know when I see their content, it's gonna impact me in some type of way. Mute accounts, unfollow accounts. I I get it. Like I'll go through, I'd be like, I've just I've been following people for years and their stuff, maybe it aligned with me years ago. It doesn't align with me anymore. Why am I still looking at it, following it, caring about it? You know right now, pause the video, pick up your phone. You know the accounts that you're following that they don't make you feel good at all. They don't inspire you, they do nothing for you, but every time you see it, you feel like a backup dookie. That felt very Jim Carrey. It literally does not matter. It's not hurting them at all, it's hurting you. Come back to your why, especially when that comparison loop starts spinning you out over here. Why do you want to create this content? Maybe you want to be consistent. Maybe it's about just building a habit of consistency. Maybe you want to have fun. Maybe you have a message that you really want to share with people. I think a lot of times when we get into these comparison loops, it just feels like genuinely like dance monkey dance. Hop online, dance, entertain me, monkey. No. I want you to enjoy the process of just being creative. I will finish this with saying, have a notes app on your phone. Whatever that is. You will be inspired at something. Something will pop up. When that comes up, write it down on your notes app. Sometimes we have ideas that we've been sitting on forever, but because of this comparison cycle that we get stuck in, we don't post. And sometimes we know we want to do this, we know we want to post content, but the moment somebody asks us what we want to post, our mind goes blank. Promise you the ideas are in there. You just gotta start recording them so that when the time comes, you can go and post them. If you don't take anything else from this video, just remember that comparison can be a tool to help you. But if you get stuck in it, if you stay in that comparison loop, you will not create. You will constantly try to perform. And you are not a performer, you are a creative. If this resonated with you, if this meant anything to you, please drop a comment, tell me what's going on, tell me how it helped, how it hurt. I don't know. I hope it didn't hurt.

unknown: 8:59

I love you.