10 useful tips to help you stop comparing yourself to others

Unconscious comparison of oneself with other people occurs in the life of every person and this is normal. But endless conscious comparison leads to the fact that we forget about ourselves, about our true desires and waste our time. First you need to analyze why this happens? Why does a person try to be someone, but not himself?

Causes

Why do we compare ourselves to others?

1. A person does not know himself and his strengths . Instead of identifying our own characteristics and talents, we begin to focus our attention on other people. Here you need to monitor your thoughts, feelings, listen to your body. You need to concentrate on your inner interest, on your strengths.

2. The habit of focusing on the opinions of others . This habit is formed in childhood. When parents or loved ones cite someone as an example, classmates, neighbor children, brothers or sisters. Here you need to understand that there are no ideal people. Learn to accept your shortcomings, develop and grow.

3. Lack of self-confidence . Comparing yourself with other people, imitating their images and principles most often occurs due to lack of self-confidence. To become a confident person, you need an objective self-assessment of your skills and abilities.

Here you can find out how to gain self-confidence

How to stop comparing yourself to others

1. To stop comparing yourself to others, you need to give up your need for approval. You must understand that any feedback about you (good or bad) does not matter. This is just your illusion and your decision what importance to attach to someone else’s opinion. There is a popular proverb: “You can’t put a scarf over someone else’s mouth.” No matter what you do, no matter what you are, they will always say something about you. But does someone else's opinion or approval affect the quality of your life? What changed because someone approved of your home, job or children? Apart from the fact that you were pleased to hear it - nothing more! Stop seeking approval! It's of no use to you.
2. Another way to break the bad habit of comparing yourself to others is to take a radical action that no one expects you to do. For example, coming to work not by car, but by bicycle. Look at the reaction of your colleagues? There are two possible reactions from your colleagues: either you will see that people are busy with their own problems and have no time to think about you. Or they will take it as an example to follow, and the very next day you will not be the only one who comes to work on a bicycle.
3. Don't try to fight the feeling that you need someone else's approval. Accept this feeling and observe how you feel. Just don't give any ratings. In a few minutes a miracle will happen - this feeling will simply disappear.
4. You need to learn to live consciously. Awareness is a person’s presence “here and now.” Learn to stop and stop thoughts of comparing yourself to others.
5. You need to accept yourself for who you are and learn to love yourself. We begin to compare ourselves with others when we forget who we are and what we ourselves want from our lives. We begin to try on other people's masks, other people's roles and lives. Completely forgetting about your purpose. Love, accept yourself and then you will realize your worth and the value of your life.
6. You always have a choice. You are the creator of your own happiness. Therefore, if you are greatly inspired by someone else’s life, then think about how much the person had to go through and do to achieve their goals. If you are ready to fight, to make every effort to become as successful, beautiful, famous - then go ahead. What's stopping you?
7. If you feel unhappy, depressed, comparing yourself to others, it's time to start working. Focus on what you want to be, what you want to achieve, write a self-improvement program for yourself and start working. When you're busy, you won't have time to slack off.
8. Be proud of your uniqueness. Write down all your achievements, advantages over others, character traits, talents. This will help you understand and see how unique and creative you are. Accept your shortcomings too. There are no perfect people, and you are no exception.
9. Learn to respect other people's achievements and enjoy the successes of other people. Being happy for another person and appreciating their successes is a great way to become happier.

When you stop comparing yourself to others and seeking approval, you will have a sense of inner freedom. You will begin to do what you want and notice wonderful opportunities around you.

Why is this harmful?

A few examples from life.

The girl Irina was always dissatisfied with her weight and constantly compared herself with her friend Nastya, because she was slimmer than her. Irina decided to lose 5 kg in six months by summer. She bought a gym membership and went there regularly.

In addition, I adjusted my diet and followed a diet. Six months later, with tears in her eyes, Irina told Nastya about how disappointed and offended she was because she had lost only 1 kg. The girl was very upset by what she thought was an insignificant result and stopped going to the gym. Irina devalued her result, which was visible to the naked eye.

A married couple divorced only because the husband constantly compared himself and his wife. She had an apartment in which they lived and good support from relatives, but he did not have this. Constant comparison haunted me and grew into envy. The husband initiated the divorce.

Negative consequences that comparisons lead to:

1. Devastation of the inner world.
2. A waste of time and energy.
3. Self-doubt is growing.
4. Self-esteem decreases.
5. Concentrating on your negative sides.
6. Apathy and depression may occur.
7. Disagreements with other people.
8. Disappointment in yourself and your abilities.
9. They hinder self-realization.
10. A feeling of inferiority appears.
11. Guilt.
12. Envy appears.
13. Living someone else's life.
14. Emotional instability arises.
15. Dissatisfaction with yourself.

How a neurotic style at work became the “abnormal norm”

The neurotic style of doing things penetrated into Russia in the 1990s. It bizarrely combined, on the one hand, the legacy of Soviet “Stakhanovism” (all these “five-year plans in three years”) - and, on the other hand, the American style, which was very superficially perceived and not suitable for our mentality (small vacations, long working hours, independence and delegation).

The late Soviet style of doing business is generally considered ineffective, but its undeniable advantage was the absence of stress at work. This is clearly visible in your favorite old films: for example, in “Office Romance” the characters work in a modern analogue of the State Statistics Service. They work hard, but are even more busy with their personal lives.

But the collapse of the USSR empire brought us many complexes, including the persistent belief that we are not working well. Since then, we were taught to work by everyone and everything, and we listened to everyone. In the thirty years since the collapse of the USSR, a strange hybrid approach to work has emerged in Russia.

We got irregular working hours, constant violation of the boundaries of personal life, instead of delegation - control and anxiety, a huge and all-encompassing fear of error.

The neurotic style of doing things has been adopted by bureaucrats, doctors, businesses, and even schools. Most of all, I feel sorry for schoolchildren, because for them now childhood is not the “best time”, but a race in a fierce competitive struggle for adaptation to stress. It’s high time to reconsider this style, but this evolution of work will go to younger generations with more stable self-esteem.

When is comparison useful?

Often we don’t even imagine how hard and at what cost a person got a positive result, because we only see the external picture. We begin to expect that this beautiful picture will appear very quickly with a minimum of effort. Many people are not ready to work, to systematically make efforts.

Comparison should be perceived as a resource and potential that can be revealed in oneself. How to do it:

1. Set a goal from internal factors, answering the question of what exactly you want, what will make you happy. And move towards your goal, no matter how long it takes. Set yourself an adequate time frame for achieving your goal. Find inner strength, inner motivation in your life. Don't assume that this person has it and I don't. You need to clearly understand what exactly you want.

2. Take the model of a successful person and apply it to your life, based on your talents and abilities. This model should motivate you to achieve your own success .

3. An analogy can be drawn between ourselves and historical heroes . Choose for yourself a harmless object of comparison from popular or profound art. Learn from him what is useful and necessary for your development.

4. Ask yourself: how do I feel after comparing with others ? If after this comparison there is a desire to achieve and set goals for yourself, then perhaps this is worth doing, as your potential is revealed. If you are in a state of exhaustion, you have no energy, strength, do not want anything, and your self-esteem plummets. Then stop yourself at this moment, this is not your way of setting a goal.

Comparison is a natural part of life. It is useful if a person is inspired by other people's achievements, and does not feel devastated. You need to take the best for yourself and implement it in your life.

Condemnation or understanding

People love to judge others to one degree or another. People who play sports and are not overweight look with condemnation at overweight people who eat at McDonald's and cannot get to the third floor without an elevator. People with stable incomes condemn those who periodically have to borrow money.

Bad habits are especially condemned by those people who themselves suffered from them but gave up. Former smokers, those who abused alcohol or junk food. They are capable of endlessly condemning those who have not yet done this: “Why are they so weak-willed?”, “They have no self-control!”, “They allow their bad habits to control them!”

And with this righteous indignation comes a feeling of superiority over other people. But this, as mentioned earlier, does not lead to happiness at all. Condemnation leads to the fact that this person becomes unpleasant to you, you have negative feelings towards him, experience disappointment and even disgust.

We would like other people to be like us, to do something to improve their lives. People generally tend to imagine themselves in other people's shoes, so we always think that we know what will be best for the other person.

It's actually very presumptuous. Even if you communicate with a close relative, you may not have any idea what he really needs, not to mention just people he knows.

When you judge people, you don't accept them for who they are, you don't accept life as it is, and you feel disappointed that it isn't.

Why not try to understand the other person instead? I am sure that a person, if desired, can understand absolutely everyone. And when you understand the other person, the hostility will disappear and you will accept another part of this life.

Be better than yourself yesterday, not others today

We are also talking about landmarks here. You are used to comparing yourself with other girls, but in fact becoming their copy is wrong and impossible. Accordingly, the only person you should really look up to is yourself.

Agree, it’s pointless to eat a pie and look at slender Vika, who goes to the gym, with an angry look. It would be more correct to supplement your diet with healthy foods and your daily routine with active physical activity.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich: Pexels

Likewise, it is strange to wear a tracksuit and be offended if the employer prefers to see the elegant Vera in the management. After all, nothing prevents you from dressing according to your rank, status, position, etc. Fortunately, the abundance of stores allows you to choose decent outfits for any budget.

In everything and always you should strive to be better than yourself. Then the need to compare (and envy) will disappear, giving way to goals, aspirations and new heights.

Why does the brain trigger burnout?

The reward system in the human brain is logical: we feel good about ourselves when we do something in anticipation of a reward. The brain is incredibly “rushing” when we accurately calculated the action and carried it out according to plan. This gives us a powerful dopamine impulse and strength for further achievements, increases self-esteem and motivation to continue to have fun.

But if you poorly calculated the deadlines or completed the task with errors and shortcomings, hitting the deadline with a loud creak, then, analyzing the result of your planning, the brain concludes that you are not sufficiently oriented in the world and are overexpending energy. That is, your activity is inappropriate for the body: a lot of effort is spent, and satisfaction is low. Therefore, the production of dopamine is reduced, which means motivation and satisfaction too. And if this happens regularly, you burn!

If such a situation becomes chronic, do not expect dopamine, but expect stress hormones. Chronic stress, in turn, reduces the ability of the prefrontal cortex to plan and calculate deadlines and overall reduces cognitive potential. This is not far from a depressive disorder with all the “bonuses”: poor sleep, endless fatigue and apathy.

Neurotic boss and his infantile subordinates

Neurotics often become bosses, which aggravates the situation and does not cure neurosis, but only warms it up.

Such a manager organizes the work process poorly, creates constant stress for colleagues, and is never completely satisfied and confident in the result. This is a typical control freak who needs power and control like air.

By confining solutions to even minor issues to himself, such a boss imprisons himself in a prison-trap. On the one hand, he cannot relax even for a second, he is constantly being tugged at; on the other hand, in this prison he feels like a very important person surrounded by dependent child employees. Due to his insecurity and anxiety, he infantilizes his subordinates because he believes that he must make all decisions himself and does not allow anyone to prove himself. The structure adapts to the leadership style, so employees quickly learn to make decisions.

It’s sad to see how modern companies, which mainly employ young people, completely reproduce the bureaucratic style of the Soviet tradition “I’m the boss - you’re a fool” in internal politics.