How to stop comparing yourself with others?

We all love to excel, be the best at what we do, do the best and beat everyone else. I agree. It is a very competitive world, the competition is cut throat, if you don’t make it, there will be a hundred more who will come at all guns at you and try to beat you. So, we all need to compare, well I couldn’t agree better. Is this the only reason we compare? What are the other reasons? Well, to name a few – to feel better about oneself, to acknowledge how good you are, to tell yourself how unique you are, to give a boost to self confidence … and so on.. I am sure we can come up with a few more reasons to that or rationalizations to that. We may debate as to how much of it is right or wrong or we can try and figure out if there are better ways to handle the same.

 1) Acknowledge

Well! For most of us, it is a natural stock response to say that we are independent, we don’t care what others are, we strive for excellence on our own accord and nothing else matters to us. Well, if you are someone who does that regularly, I am in complete respect and I tip my hat to you. However if you are like me and the rest of us, I would say the first step starts with recognition. Identify that you compare, identify which are all the sectors you compare yourself to others in  – Is it wealth, happiness, love, friendship, humor.., What is the attribute that gathers most attention? This may very well point us to what we are uncertain about in our life. It maybe one of the greatest indications for you to identify what you perceive as a challenge – either consciously or without your knowledge

 2) Why do you compare?

Identify the actual reason as to why you compare? Is it to feel better about yourself? Is it to give the feeling of confidence? Is it about the feel of self sufficiency? What is it that drives you to do this, what is the motivational factor?

3) How do you address it?

Once you identify the attribute and identify why you need an external acknowledgement for the same, the question is how do you address it? How do you find ways to come out of that habit and reorient your thought process in a way that it serves you? Well maybe the thought that if you are saying you are better than someone, you are also trying to find how better they are than you in a different aspect. You are in a continous mode of identifying yourself and guess what you are headed to in this thought pattern? DISAPPOINTMENT! If you are in that constant mode, there is bound to be someone better than you, someone who makes you feel horrible, someone who makes you want to keep pushing yourself.

 4) But comparing gives me competition

I agree, I would be lying if I said I don’t compete. In fact right now when I write this article, I am trying to compare my site with others and trying to identify how I can make mine better. But something we consciously decide is that we won’t allow the competition to become sore, we cant be in a place where you compete against each other. There is only one entity you compete with, that is about being the best and constantly improving yourself and delivering a better quality. The moment you stop doing that, you start finding sillier ways not to get better but to show the other person down.

5) Are we saying competition is bad then?

No no! Not at all, competition is a fantastic thing, it puts a check on us, it makes us identify what the expectations are, it makes us identify how we can get better not at the cost of others but at the cost of our lower self. It helps us raise ourselves to a standard and grow to that front and deliver. It makes us who we are. But then why did we start the article saying why we should not compare with others, well it is not about who you compare with, it is what you compare for and in this essence we are comparing for excellence and growth over the sole idea of trying to defeat someone.

 6) What is the actual comparison then?

 I guess the best comparison is with self, we try and identify how good we are at something, check with ourselves if this is the best we can do? Find ways to improve those minor bits which make us outstanding as opposed to good. I guess those are the minor competitions and comparisons we ought to be looking at cos that is more of fulfilment!

 Having said this, I do agree, a 100% no comparison life is impossible and we wont dare advocate that, we are talking about trying to reorient the perception a little so that it helps us more than acting against us. For every small addition in life can go on to become a change we are extremely proud of.

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