Why Do I Feel Constantly Pressured to "Keep Up" With Others?

Speaker A00:00:00

You ever feel like you're running a race you just can't win? This pressure to keep up with what everyone else has, it's exhausting, isn't it? It drains your joy, doesn't it?If we're not careful, it empties our wallets as well. Let me ask you this. What if we could step off that treadmill for good? Today is all about freedom. Freedom from comparison.And today is closer than you might think. That's what I'll talk about on today's show.This is Financially Confident Christian, your daily dose of gospel, grounded insight and faith driven tips to help you break the cycle of financial shame with confidence. Welcome back to Financially Confident Christian. I'm Ralph. I am so happy that you've chosen to join me today.This is the daily show where we help you become a more financially confident Christian. And we're in our series trying to break those financial chains. And yesterday we had a great show about the financial strain of kids activities.I'm going to encourage. If you missed it, go and check it out.All of our shows are@financiallyconfidentchristian.com but today we're going to navigate money and social pressure is all around us. That social pressure is constantly bombarding us from social media. We'll talk a lot about that tomorrow. But there's this constant urge to keep up.You're probably feeling it right now. As I sat down to record today, my phone's going off with emails and social media messages and it's constant.We scroll through social media, we see cars, we see kitchens, we see vacations. It's all around us. And if we're not careful, suddenly everything we have starts to feel small, doesn't it?And there's this natural push to upgrade, to spend more too. Hey, guess what? It's really called catching up with everybody else. But here's the problem.The problem is all of those things, they're just moving targets. And the result of those moving targets, we lose our joy. Our joy is completely stolen. Our budgets are wrecked.We just feel this constant state of not being enough. Here's the thing I want you to understand from the start today and I was thinking about when I was preparing for today's show.What does culture really say? The truth is our culture. And for what it's worth, it's a sad thing. But our culture thrives on comparison.Everything around us is designed to make us feel. Feel discontented. The reason it does that is it wants us to spend more.It wants us to go get those things that everyone Else has that comparison trap. I've talked about that on the show many times, but this shows about something a little bit bigger than that.And see, God's word teaches us something completely opposite of that. God's word teaches us not to covet.So let's get right into the word of God today to help bolster us and help us find that freedom I talked about at the beginning of this show. And we're going to go right to the book of Exodus. This is from Exodus 21:17. It says this. Now, I'm going to tell you right?This is quite direct, but I thought this was perfect for today's show. Again, this is Exodus 20:17. You shall not covet your neighbor's house.You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male or female servant or his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Now, listen, in the culture we're in today, I don't know too many people that have oxes or donkeys. I actually live on a farm.I've got some Black Angus cows and a lady across the street from me, pretty sure she's got a donkey over there. But for most people right now, we don't have oxes or donkeys. But it's saying something much deeper than that, isn't it?Not to covet your neighbor's house, not to constantly compare yourself to that or compare yourself to the neighbor's wife or their servants or or anything else that belongs to them. That's really what we're talking about. The Bible in this chapter of Exodus is really telling us to stop living in that comparison trap.Well, let's look at the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verses 11 to 13. This is a great way to ground yourself and finally find that freedom that we're talking about today. And this is from Philippians, chapter 4, 11, 13.Then this is Paul speaking right here. It says, I'm not saying this because I'm in need, for I've learned to be content whatever the circumstances.I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.And this is the most beautiful piece of scripture. I believe in the Bible, I can do all things through him who strengthens me.What Paul is really talking about is how we can break that comparison trap. Because what is he saying? He knows what it's like to be in need. He knows what it's like to have A lot. And what's the big secret?What is he saying to us in every situation? Whether he's hungry or whether he's well fed, whether he's got plenty or he is in need? What is he really saying? Look to God.See, that's the problem when we covet. A lot of people say, that's a fancy word, Ralph. Coveting. A lot of people say, what does that mean?That is truly the root of this comparison, comparing ourselves to others. But here's the thing, and the problem is we're comparing ourselves to others because we feel inadequate. You might be listening to this right now.You're like, ralph, man, I do feel inadequate some days. Well, here's the freedom piece, the first piece of your freedom journey. Your true strength doesn't come from what you have.It doesn't come from what's sitting in the driveway. It doesn't come from those Instagram vacation pictures. It doesn't come from how much money's in your bank account or in your 401k.Your true strength comes from Christ. It doesn't come from status. That's the first thing we need to understand.If you want to break free and start to break these chains of financial anxiety, specifically today, as we're talking about this comparison trap, you have to understand your true strength doesn't come from your stuff. I want you to hear that today. It doesn't come from your stuff. It comes from Christ, not your status. And it's so easy.I found myself in this same situation. I'll be sitting there just casually scrolling through Facebook. You may be doing the same thing.You see somebody's vacation post and you're feeling, oh man, I wish I could do that. They're out there having such a great time on the water skis or parasailing on some island. You're just having a great time with life.That's that comparison trap. Maybe you pull up, you know, at your house and next door your neighbor just got a brand new Corvette.You're thinking, man, I would love to have a Corvette. I get a sold jalopy in my driveway and it sparks that urge to upgrade, to compare yourself to that person.But the lesson that I learned, and listen, I was right there. I was living one time, neighbor went out and bought this brand new sports car. I said, I gotta have a sports car.I ran to the store, my wife says, you're crazy, Ralph. But I went and bought a new Corvette. And what did it do? That comparison led me to debt. I really paid too much for a car.I didn't even want to drive it. But then when I finally started thinking about how do I break free of this, I needed to learn contentment. So that's my big takeaway from today.Your action item for today is to learn how to step off that treadmill. And the way you do that, and this is, there's no secret sauce to this. It's really this simple.It's time to practice what I'm going to call radical contentment. Now it is radical because the world, this is completely against what the world says. I, I do a weekly show, it's called Truth Unveiled with Ralph.And I did a show a couple weeks ago about finding your true value. I encourage you to check that out. You can see that at truth unveiled with Ralph.com and I'll put that in the show notes.But we need to break free of this. We need to get off that treadmill. And the best way to do that is to practice radical contentment. And here's something that's really countercultural.Think about celebrating others blessings without turning them into your burden. Because when we see someone else's stuff becomes a burden to us. Well, we got to have that, we got to guard our heart against triggers.Now you might be saying around, okay, that sounds great dude, but how do we make that happen? Well, here's your action steps for today.First thing you've got to do, and I've talked about this on the show before, you've got to really sit down and have a heart to heart discussion with yourself. Talk to yourself, but identify those triggers. What triggers? These feelings of comparison, what triggers? These feelings of I don't have enough.You got to think about unfollowing those accounts.If you're looking at social media and these things are triggering you, stop looking at them, limit your exposure to them because those are the things going to keep you mired on that treadmill of just scrolling. Think about it like this. Think about the analogy, the visual picture here.You're scrolling through social media and all it's doing is making you feel bad about yourself. And the truth is this, social media is designed to do that. Social media is designed to make you feel bad about yourself. Why?So that you can go buy stuff, you spend money with the advertisers, what they're doing on social media in the first place. So that's the first thing. Identify those triggers and stop putting yourself in a position to be surrounded by those triggers all the time.And then I'm going to encourage you to practice joyful affirmation. Not just thank God for the blessings that you have. And hey, here's something more radical. Have a blessing for others around you.Well, that's so great. I see Ted got a new car.Maybe you're on social media and you're limiting your exposure a little bit and you see that Jessica's in the islands and having a great time with her family. Well, thank you that Jessica can do that. And then the third thing, and this is another radical step, is it's time to focus on your unique path.Well, how do you do that, Ralph? Write down two or three blessings that you already have. See, it's so easy to compare ourselves. It's always to think that we don't have enough.But how many times do we just sit down and think about all the things that we already have? Write those things down. I've made a practice the last couple weeks of really.Every time my foot hits the floor in the morning, I think for just a couple minutes, I think, God, what should I be grateful for today? What are the blessings that I have in my life? And I'm going to challenge you to do the same thing because it will help you get off of that treadmill.It'll help you break that comparison trap and you'll start to find freedom. You'll regain your heart and you'll find peace.How about we pray together right now, Lord God, we just thank you for the unique design for each of us, Lord. It's amazing how much you've made us unique in all of our special ways and our talents and our gifts.Lord, we gotta confess right now, Lord, that we do compare ourselves to others as much as your word tells us not to do it. Lord, we do covet our neighbors things. Maybe not their donkeys or their oxmore, but we do compare ourselves to them. We covet what they have.So Lord, right now we just ask that you would help us to find joy in what other people are blessed with and help us to find joy in what you've already given us, Lord. Help us to find contentment in what we already have, Lord. And we're just so thankful for you. We're so thankful for that, Lord.And we just ask that you would help keep us rooted in Christ, which really is our true identity and help us break that comparison culture that's all around us. And Lord, we ask this in confidence in the name of Jesus. Amen. Real freedom comes when you stop chasing enough. I want you to hear that today.Real, true freedom. It comes when you stop chasing enough. So it's time to step off that treadmill. And it's time to truly embrace that radical contentment.And while we're talking about things, I would love it if you'd share the show with somebody. I'm really working right now to grow the show.My goal is to grow the amount of people that we're impacting because, listen, there's a lot of people that are stuck on these treadmills of comparison. They are spending their way into debt that they're never going to be able to pay off. And you could impact them.Just send them an email, send them a text. Just send them right to our website.That's financially confident Christian.com hey, share the wealth because you don't know somebody out there could be stuck on this treadmill themselves. And you sharing the show can make all the difference. And listen, while you're out there, I want to give you a copy of my book.I just finished releasing my third book. It's called Becoming a Financially confident Christian and it's yours absolutely free. Go right to the website. Get a free download of that.Just go to financially confidentchristian.com/becoming now, tomorrow on the show, we're going to dig a little deeper into this. We're going to talk about why these ads all around us make us feel like we need more stuff.Well, more importantly than that, I want to tell you tomorrow how to fight back. Yeah, we're going to get in the boxing match and we're going to push back against these ads that make us feel inadequate.So tomorrow show is going to be one you don't want to miss. So as I close today, I just want to remind you this. You can do this. You have the strength. You have more strength than you can imagine.And as Paul said, I can do all things through him who gives me strength. I believe in you. Believe in yourself and go live as a financially confident Christian. God bless you and you have a great day today.