Always Chasing Change?

The speaker, Amy Mallory, discusses the desire for change and the constant comparison to others on social media. She questions why people always feel the need to change something in their lives in order to find happiness. She suggests taking a break from social media to see if it affects one's feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out) and the need for constant change. She encourages self-reflection and journaling to determine if there are truly areas in one's life that need to be changed, rather than simply being influenced by others' highlight reels on social media. Welcome to Coaching Your Inner Self. I am Amy Mallory and I am your coach. Life is hard. Life is scary. Life is messy. Especially when you lack a sense of direction in where you want to go and who you want to be. I have good news though. You don't have to be lost. You don't have to feel empty. You don't ever have to settle. Everyone deserves the life they dream about. I can help you find it. I can help you find your path and embrace it with happiness and with gratitude. Let's go do the work, guys. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining me on this beautiful, sunny December day. Today we are going to be talking about something that is dear to my heart and it's always chasing change. I have gone through this myself and I didn't realize it at the time. So I thought that I would talk about it today so that somebody out there that is possibly listening and going through the same thing can kind of get some tips and tricks on how to deal with it. Have you ever asked yourself, will dramatically changing my life make me happy? Why do we always want something to change in order to find that happiness that we seek? I've often found myself daydreaming of ways to change certain areas of my life because something is lacking. I'm not happy. I'm frustrated. I'm sad. I'm depressed. I've often thought that I can find a better job that makes me happier. I can find a different relationship or a relationship in general and that will make me happy. My living situation isn't good enough, big enough, pretty enough, quiet enough and it needs to change for me to be happy. I've thought that my entire life at times needed to change so that I could find the happiness that I thought I was missing. Why do we develop this train of thought? Why are we never content enough and happy enough with the life that we presently have? Why are we convinced that changing something or changing everything will be the answer to the happiness that we're craving? Let's keep in mind, change is a good thing. Being able to step out of your comfort zone, come out of your shell, take on an adventurous soul can bring your life so much beauty and excitement and joy. Doing inner work on yourself is also a good thing. Developing better habits, changing a negative mind frame or teaching yourself how to learn about yourself and be better as yourself. It's always leading to a better life and that kind of change is fantastic. That's why we're all here, right? It's when you are constantly seeking dramatic change with outside influences that we are never satisfied for long and it can become a problem. We are always craving something new and different. I was always craving and dreaming and obsessing about something else and it left me constantly unsatisfied. I was never content. You know, we've all heard the term, the grass is greener on the other side. Well, if the grass is always greener on the other side, we have a fucking problem. That process of thought can be exhausting, depressing and anxiety provoking. It can make you think and feel as though everything in your life is wrong. Nothing is right and everything needs to change in order for you to be happy. It's the belief that in this new thing, whether it's a new job, a new place to live, a new state, a new country, a new boyfriend, a new car, new clothes, that's where the happiness that we're missing will be found in that new thing. That is where we will finally find contentment in life and be able to breathe and just be happy. The grass is always greener on the other side. That can become a problem if that's always how you're thinking. So, I was doing a little bit of research about this last night and I came across this term. In some circles, especially in the newer generations, people reference FOMO, F-O-M-O, and it's called the fear of missing out. It instantly struck me. I suffer from the fear of missing out on everything, on anything as I'm living my day-to-day life. I spend a lot of time on social media and I know you do too. All of these apps, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, all these apps where people are constantly posting the adventures, the clips of adventures in their lives, leads us to this FOMO, this fear of missing out. We watch these posts almost obsessively and then, in turn, feel as though we are missing out on those things that we are seeing. It's like we follow the same people on social media. We watch the same clips from the same accounts on social media. All we see are these probably years worth of compounded trips, vacations, and experiences. They're just hammering them out day after day after day. It makes us feel as though these people are doing this shit all the time. We, for some reason, are missing out. There's that FOMO because all we're doing is watching the highlights of their lives. It made total sense to me, which is why I'm sharing it with you now. How can we be happy and content in the lives that we're living when everyone around us and everybody that we're watching online gets to live these amazing adventures every single day? That's what it seems like when we're watching these people constantly. They're posting the same vacation, but they may be breaking it up into clips that they're posting here and there every day to make it seem like their entire life is one big fucking vacation. Their life is one big travel experience. All these beautiful homes, the van life, all these beach vacations that we're watching, all these tropical forest retreats and mountain climbing and hiking that everybody gets to fucking do all day every day. Their spa trips, their meditation trips, all these beautiful cars that they get to drive and the amazing wardrobes that they get to wear while they're walking beautifully down a deserted beach in the middle of the tropics of an island somewhere in the fucking Pacific. How can we be happy when this is all we're watching? We are constantly bombarding ourselves with all these beautiful, glorious, adventurous lives. And we do it so frequently that these people become our friends in our mind. So we get to watch our friends live these glorious lives every day. No wonder we feel like our own life is complete shit and it's boring. No wonder when we spend our day comparing ourselves to everybody else. So how do we fix it? How do we stop feeling like the grass is always greener? How do we stop feeling like we need to consistently change everything about our lives? And I'm not talking small changes. I'm talking about quitting your job and moving across the country. Moving to a different state. Moving to a different country. Moving and creating this entire new life for yourself because that in some way is going to make you more happy than you are right now. It's big changes. And I've gone through this myself for years and years at a time. Making big changes whether it's a new apartment or a new car or a new job. Thinking that that change, that grand vacation. God, I've gone on so many fucking grand vacations and basically bankrupted myself. Because I thought that that was where I was going to find my happiness is in these massive changes and massive excitement and massive adventures that I was throwing at myself. Because that's what I was seeing all the time was happy people on the internet living their best fucking lives all day every day. And here I am going to the same job with the same people doing the same thing every day and feeling like I'm missing out. How do we fix it? How do we fix it so that we don't feel that way? How do we stop feeling like we need to be better, our lives need to be better, things need to be different in order to be happy? How do we stop this the grass is greener mentality? Because it's not always a good thing. Most of the time it's probably not a good thing. But how do we fix it? My number one recommendation, and it's actually something that I'm going to do myself, is to take a social media break. I'm going to stop looking at all of these apps so religiously, so obsessively. Stopping scrolling for hours at a time for 30 days to see how I feel. And I'm going to very closely monitor my emotions, monitor how I'm feeling, monitor the thoughts that are going through my mind to see if I feel that FOMO still. If I feel like I need to make massive changes still. Maybe if we don't see it, we don't know we're missing out. Maybe if we don't overly expose ourselves to all of these adventures and this glorious lives that people are living, we won't feel so shitty about our own. And we won't think that we're missing out on literally just like all these amazing lives. So a social media break. Maybe start with a week, maybe start with two weeks. I'm going to start with a month and see how it goes. And see how it makes us feel. I'm also logically going to think about every video I see and why exactly it makes me feel like I need to change my life. Why do these videos make you feel like you need to upend your life in order to be happy? Is there really something about your life that needs to change? Are we missing something? Is this feeling real? Because we don't ever want to negate a feeling or brush off a feeling if it's true. So I guess we need to really examine, is there something that I really need to change in my life? And what are these videos trying to tell me? Have I not gone on a vacation in five years? And that's something that my body and my soul really needs. Have I not left my hometown that I've grown up in and I do the same thing all day, every day, for every day of my entire life? Do I need to maybe make a move to a different location in order to grow? You need to actually examine if there's really, really, really something that you need to change in your life. Because we don't want to ignore that feeling. So journal about it. What is it about these videos that draw me so much? What about social media traps me into hours and hours of scrolling and then me feeling like my own life isn't good enough and I need to change it? Is there really something about our lives that needs to change? Or are you simply just envious, just jealous of the people in these videos and the lives that they are seemingly living online? Because there are just bits and pieces, you know. We don't see the full story. They can literally go on a week's vacation and use the same video from the same vacations for months at a time, just posting random different clips. Also finding gratitude. And I say this in pretty much every podcast that I go through or speak about, is finding gratitude. This is one of the most important things that you can do for yourself and your life and your happiness, is finding gratitude all day, every day. As much as we immerse ourselves in social media, immerse yourself in finding the small blessings in your day and writing them down. So instead of scrolling on social media for another hour, why don't you think about every small thing that happened today that made you smile? And write them down. Then we can go back and read them. The good thing that I like about journaling is that it puts your thoughts to pen and paper. You can always read back. And I always read back when I'm feeling a downward spiral. So find the things in your everyday life that have made you smile, that have made you laugh. The people in the life that you're currently living, find gratitude, find the happiness from your life and write it down. And be grateful. And write down the reasons why you're grateful. So that just like you're bombarding yourself with these videos of all of these adventures that you're missing out on, You're also bombarding yourself with all the teeny tiny things in your day-to-day life that made you smile and laugh and made you happy. Because they are everywhere. Add more joy to your day. It can be the littlest thing like a good cup of coffee or dinner with friends. You can read a great book. Spend valuable time with your family. Take a day trip somewhere. Have an adventure on your own. But it doesn't have to be something that's going to be some massive change or it's going to drain your savings account. You can literally just drive to the next fucking town for a day. Snuggle with your person or with your pet in your bed or on the couch and just watch movies with them. Do at least one thing every single day that you find happiness in. In the life that you're literally living right now. And focus while you do it. Do it purposely. Be in the moment. You know, I'm going to drink this cup of coffee and it's my favorite creamer. And I put a little extra in because it's fucking delicious. And I'm going to drink this cup of coffee and it's my favorite creamer. And I put a little extra in because it's fucking delicious. And I'm going to drink this coffee in complete silence. And I'm not going to touch my phone. And I'm not going to listen to music. I'm just going to really enjoy this cup of coffee. Or I'm going to have lunch with my best friend and I'm not going to touch my phone. I'm going to be present in the conversation that her and I are having. And we're going to laugh. And we're going to joke. And we're going to talk about stupid shit. And we're going to bring up old memories. And it's going to be a great lunch. But you can't get distracted when you're doing these things that you're trying to add joy to your day with. You can't be happy doing things that make you happy if you're not paying attention. So add small joys, small wins, small things of happiness to every single day. And be in the moment while you do them. There can be so much joy in our day-to-day life, but we miss it because we aren't paying attention. We don't purposely have gratitude on the good things that we have in our lives. We spend far too much time watching others live little pieces of their life, always leaving us wanting more. We probably already have more than enough. We just need to realize it. We need to pay attention. We need to focus on the things that are happening in our days that are good, that are kind, that are happy, that bring us joy. Because always needing to make massive change in your life or booking grand vacations or quitting your job and living the van life, it's temporary. It's not what you actually need. So find the happiness, which is what you actually are craving, in your day-to-day because it is there. It's there if you pay attention to it and you acknowledge it and you're present in it and then you find gratitude for it later. You don't need to change every single aspect of your life to be happy. You can be right now in the moment. As always, if you find this podcast episode in any way relatable, shoot me a message, shoot me an email, leave me a review and let me know that it hit home for you. I always like to know there's at least one person out there listening and understanding what I am talking about and hopefully I can help someone out there. You can always share this podcast episode with a friend or family member if you know they're also going through the same challenges in life. As always, thank you so much for listening and we will talk soon.