The Dangers of Comparing Yourself to Others

Have you ever looked at someone and thought ‘I wish I could (be/do/ dress/ act) like that?’ In my younger days, I certainly did. It seemed natural and I think it stemmed from when my parents said… I wish you were more like…, or you should be more like…. It can become habitual and it is not always healthy.

Today, whenever I find myself doing that, I stop and reflect on my uniqueness and remind myself that I don’t know their back story or history, so it would be like comparing apples with oranges. It just doesn’t work!

Comparing yourself to others is a reliable way to reduce your confidence, motivation, and self-esteem. While it may seem natural to make these types of comparisons, (because nearly everyone does it), it doesn’t mean it’s a good move.

If you want to become the best version of you, you must avoid comparing yourself to others and remind yourself that you are beautiful and unique, just the way you are.

The Dangers of  Comparing Yourself

There are several challenges that occur when you compare yourself to someone else:

Firstly, everyone has a different starting point. You might be just learning to play the guitar, but your friend has been playing for 10 years. You can’t compare progress, results, or success unless the starting points are the same, and they never are.

Secondly, everyone has a different level of talent. Some people are born with a high IQ. Some people naturally have amazing hand-eye coordination. Others have a natural knack for music or math.

Also, you need to remind yourself that the resources available to you and another person will most likely be different. If you want to play the violin and your father is a wealthy concert violinist, you have a huge advantage over someone born into a financially-challenged family that has no experience in music.

A sad but true observation, especially with the increase of social media, is that we tend to compare ourselves to the best in the world. You don’t compare your tennis skills to your neighbor the electrician. You compare yourself to the tournament winners. We don’t compare ourselves to the average. We compare ourselves to the best the world has to offer. Afterall, that is what is used to benchmark in the news today.

Remember, There will always someone better, be it in the future or in the past. There are only a handful of people that can make a reasonable claim to being the best at anything. There are nearly eight billion people in the world. That’s a lot of people you have to surpass to be the best, and even then, it will be fleeting.

It’s easy to see why making comparisons can be dangerous. There’s little to gain and too much risk. Comparing yourself to others doesn’t provide useful information. You’re only going to upset yourself, and that type of comparison isn’t fair in the first place.

So, What is The Solution?

Here’s what you can do instead:

Compare yourself to yourself. A better option is to compare yourself to yourself. Pay attention to your progress over time. Notice your improvement. As long as you’re making headway, you have a good reason to be excited! Strive to become better each day. This is where goal setting can come in handy.

Limit your exposure to social media. In theory, social media exists to connect people. In reality, social media is often used as a way of showing off and feeding egos. You rarely get the real story. What you get is someone’s best attempt to make their life look better than it really is. Everyone, except you, seems to be living a spectacular life. It’s just not true!

Be cautious with social media. Most people report being happier when they removed social media from their lives.

Use the success of others as inspiration. The success of others can be useful to you. It’s okay to have role models. You can study how they became so successful. Their success can inspire you to become the best you can be. Just avoid comparing your success to theirs.

Do you compare yourself to others? Making this type of comparison can be detrimental to your confidence and self-esteem. Instead, compare your current version of yourself to the version of yourself from three months ago. That’s a fair comparison to make. It becomes easy to see your progress or lack of progress.

The best comparison you can make is to your past self. Set a few goals and spend some time each day working on those goals. You’ll be happy when you see the progress you’ve made.

If you want help being the best you can be, without comparing to others, drop me a line, I can help you work towards that great vision.