Comparison comes from lack of self-awareness. And comparing to others is a habit you have been building since your childhood without awareness. It has started from your parents who thought that comparing you with your siblings would help you to grow, then school gave comparison in full form by ranking you. The point is that as a kid or student, it is ok, maybe good for you to survive this childhood phase. But when it comes to real-world experience, when the test of living and learning matters most, you fail to do it because you are applying the same version of comparison you have learned when you were a child.
As you age, you should learn what to compare and how to compare for your growth and self-worth. Exactly in this blog post, I am going to show you 5 steps to stop comparing yourself to others and find peace, joy, and fulfillment in your life again:
Table of Contents
1. To stop comparison, focus on progression:
There are two types of comparison: one is upward, and the second is downward. Comparison could make you happy or unhappy, depending on who you compare. For example, if you play Tennis, compare yourself with Novak Djokovic, then the skill difference will upset you, you will lose motivation, or compare with your friend who still doesn’t know how to serve a tennis ball yet, then it will make you bored.
What is the solution? The solution is to apply the Goldilocks Rule or optimal zone (not too much, nor too less, just in the middle) to get out of comparison and start focusing on progression. So, stop comparing yourself to others about what you have more or less; instead, find your own zone (where you are right now) through reflection, and then improve little by little over time, as famous comedian Steve Martin did with his career. Remember, too much expectation will kill you, and too less expectation will murder you.
2. To stop comparison, find your inspiration:
You compare yourself with others when you don’t know who you truly are, or you messed up with your life and don’t know what to do, clueless. To stop comparison, first figure out who you are, what you love doing, or are good at doing, find your passion.
To figure out who you are and what to do, you need to experiment with yourself not comparison. How to experiment with yourself? The answer is to try and explore many things at first in diverse fields of interest. Then, you are going to go through a trial and error process, which means you try and fail, and with this process you will learn about yourself: your strengths and weaknesses, what is working with you and what is not. Remember, always go with your instinct and find passion through discomfort.
Once you find your passion, you need to search for your inspiration because inspiration eliminates comparison. Who is your inspiration? It could be Elon Musk or anyone else. Then, learn what is learnable from him: his attitude, thinking pattern, lifestyle, integrity, mindset, habits, etc. Now, with this little mindset shift, you changed your whole attitude toward life; you are replacing the comparison with the inspiration. Before then, you had been blocking your growth and potential by comparing yourself to others; now you are opening your potential and growth to infinity.
3. To stop comparison, start Appreciation:
Nowadays, lack of appreciation is a social disease. This disease has spread throughout society and community for centuries. Hence, one of the biggest causes of comparison is the lack of appreciation. Comparison will put you down, and appreciation will put you up in life. So, appreciate the life of others, and ask yourself ‘what can I learn, and how can I learn’.And appreciate what you have done good in your life, and forgive yourself for bad things you have done in your life.
4. To stop comparison, embrace self-acceptance:
Somehow, we learned from our society and school to become harder on ourselves all the time. It is called punishment: punish yourself for your actions. Nothing wrong with that, the problem is when you are always complaining about yourself, you become distracted by noise. You start to hate yourself, and you try to become someone outside because you don’t like yourself.
Don’t let your life control others, instead embrace yourself despite all the imperfections, mistakes, lackings and sins. Sit quietly and talk to yourself calmly for 10 minutes, try to hear your authentic inner voice with love and compassion. Then, you will see everything you did: comparison, complaining, hating, were the illusions; you just made up all of these things in your head by yourself for nothing.
So, be soft to yourself and accept the reality of who you are, and search for what and how you can bring value to the world for betterment. Remember, there is no competition in life, all it is contribution, contribute as best as you can for your society, family, country, world, and yourself.
5. To stop comparison, shift your focus from getting to becoming:
One of the sources of unhappiness is obsessing over getting, or focusing on what I am getting all the time. When you become selfish, you narrow down your perspectives and visions. Thus, you can not see things outside of your zone. You fall into the comparison trap of getting, and possessing, wherever you look you find lack because of error in your judgement of the world.
So, shift your getting mindset into giving mindset. Then, you will see a dramatic change in your life. Ask questions like what can I give to others and how can I give. It could be money, knowledge, skill, whatever just give and do your best in your life. Remember, there is an universal law: whatever good things you give to others, it will return to you in many forms.
Final thoughts: stop comparing yourself to others and focus on yourself because everybody is in the same comparison trap due to imperfection. Thus, practicing appreciation, forgiveness, kindness and compassion will make you better human and successful in life than comparing yourself with others that cost you energy and time.