When you compare yourself to another and conclude that you are a bad person, you are making yourself powerless. This is called ‘negative social comparison.’ Alternatively, when you compare and decide that you are superior, that is a sign of narcissism. Either way, it’s not a good thing for you to do. Here are 10 tips how to stop comparing yourself to others.
1. You’ll Always Come Up Wanting
We tend to idealize other people’s lives. From our limited perspective, they seem to have it together, they look good, they’re in control, whereas you feel as though you are hanging on by a thread. Compared to the other person you are disorganized, have many bad hair days and life is always out of control.
You need to know that they are very likely as stressed as you are. It takes a gargantuan effort to appear calm and collected at all times. Stop comparing and turn your attention to restructuring your daily life to make things run smoother. Research some systems. Make use of apps to impose some sort of routine to make your tasks flow more easily. Slowing down may seem to be counterintuitive but taking your time to completing tasks efficiently is more effective than cramming more to-dos on your list.
2. You Can’t See Into Their Life
You have no idea what the other person is dealing with. There may be illness in the family. They may be going home to an empty house and wishing they weren’t. They may have had the worst childhood you could imagine and are battling inner demons. You don’t know, so it’s pointless feeling inadequate by comparison.
3. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others on Social Media
Social media is one of the easiest ways to make a comparison. You see all the great things that people fill their lives with… and yours seems pretty mediocre. You need to know that most people only ever post the positive things in their life. The highlights. And, if they have the time to fill your Facebook feed with their activities, then the activities are not filling their time. There may well be photos of lively-looking parties, but you know from experience that most parties are not moment-to-moment roller coasters of fun. Whereas, your walk in the woods with your dog, is replenishing, life-enhancing, spiritual and just plain enjoyable.
One of the more recent phenomena is the proximity of celebs to our own lives. Twitter, Ingram and the rest, bring these people’s everyday lives right into yours. It’s cool, isn’t it? Perhaps, but you just can’t help wishing you were like them, looked like them, had their money, relationships and their fun. You need to know that celebrities have the same problems as you do. That they also do the comparison thing. In fact, they spend so much time working on their image, that their lives are pretty empty of anything meaningful. The extent of their contribution to a better world is limited to Twitter.
3. Envy is Unattractive
Doesn’t matter how much you try to hide it, envy and jealousy will ooze out of you. It will affect your confidence and self-esteem. So put yourself above that sort of negative emotion. End your pity party and find something better to do.
4. Kick Comparison and Be Kind
Instead of comparing yourself to others, make an effort to be kinder to them. Kindness and compassion is not only for the needy. Your coworkers, extended family members and friends will all respond positively to a genuinely kind attitude.
5. Use Comparison to be Better
Sometimes comparing yourself to others can be useful. If it propels you forward, causes you to make improvements and gives you a goal to aim for, then comparison is good. However, if it makes you withdrawn, apathetic, and uncreative, then stop doing it. Be the best you can be at being yourself.
6. Be a Leader, Not a Follower
Following trends, replicating what other people say, do, wear, eat, like and tweet about, makes you a sort of social clone. Do you want to be a social clone? Then be the trend setter yourself. Be the creator of your life. Use other people as inspiration to do better and to make changes. Don’t follow in their footsteps.
7. Compete with Yourself
The best benchmark in your life is you. Look at your past achievements and better them. Don’t regret the things you failed at or didn’t do, simply let them go and do better today. Make this moment special. Make today a good day and make this coming week be the week you did something amazing.
8. Appreciate What You Have
Do you know how many people would love to have your life? To live where you live? To have your friends as theirs? You have so much to appreciate in every moment. Sure you can make improvements, but really, when it comes down to it, would you swap your life for another's? Would you take their life if it were offered to you?
9. Judging Others
If it is a habit of yours to judge other people and conclude they suck because they are not as good as you, then know that doing this is very bad for you. You are attempting to boost your own self-esteem, but it won’t work. The emotions you feel when judging others are always negative. Frustration that they aren’t making better choices, disgust because they look the way they do, irritation that they refuse to change and all manner of emotions that are way down the scale.
Why not discard this habit? You could try understanding why people do what they do? After all, not all your choices have been good ones. Perhaps you have had a bad habit or two in the past? You can’t know what is going on in their life or in their psyche, so be kind, not judgmental.
10 Create Your (Almost) Perfect Life
Spend a little time examining where you think your life is lacking. What would you want to change? If you hate your job, there are ways to turn that around so that it becomes the best job in the world. If your relationship is stagnating, then make it better. If your home needs decluttering, then get to it. Why put up with a dull and disorderly life when you can do something about it? Turn your life into your creative project and stop comparing yourself to others.
Images courtesy of Pixabay