Marsha GillComparison is the thief of joy and cripples your confidence, motivation, and self-esteem, compromises your calling, and blocks your blessings. When we focus on what others are doing to measure up, we shift our focus off what we are doing or what we should be doing. Not only that, but we also create a gap for negative thoughts to settle in.
If you want to become the best possible you, stop comparing yourself to others. Be who you were created to be.
Here’s the danger of comparing ourselves to others.
-Everyone has a different starting point. You can’t compare progress, results, or success unless the starting points are the same, and they never are.
-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. Again, different starting points.
-The resources available to you and another person are different.
-We tend to compare ourselves to the best in the world. We compare ourselves to the best the world has to offer, and that ain’t right.
-There’s always someone better. Only a handful of people can make a reasonable claim to being the best at anything, aka the GOAT. There are nearly eight billion people in the world. That’s a lot of folks you have to surpass to be the best.
You can see why comparisons are unwise and dangerous. There’s little to gain and way too much risk. Comparing yourself to others doesn’t provide useful information. You will only upset yourself and open the door to stress, anxiety, and depression.
Do this instead:
-Compare yourself to yourself. A better option is to compare yourself to yourself. Pay attention to your progress over time. Reflect on how far you’ve come. 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.
Notice your improvement as long as you’re making headway; that’s a solid reason to be excited! Strive to become better minute by minute, day by day.
-Limit your exposure to social media. In theory, social media exists to connect people. In actuality, social media is often used as a way of calling out, proving, and showing off. You rarely get the real story. What you get is someone’s best attempt to make their life look better than it is. Got you thinking everyone except you seems to be living a spectacular life. That’s not true at all. 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. You can study how they became so successful. Their success can inspire you to become the best you can be. Avoid the comparison road; it’s a dead-end street when you compare your success to theirs.
God wants us to look up, not around. So “Be confident. Too many days are wasted comparing ourselves to others and wishing to be something we aren’t. Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it is only when you accept everything you are – and aren’t – that you will truly succeed.”
