Comparison: Something You Need To Stop Doing That Is Ruining Your Contentment
Does A Part Of You Hate To See Other People Succeed And Flourish?
Let me paint the picture. Your friend gets a new job that is paying him twice as much as your current job. Someone you know is going on fancy vacations that you could never afford. The houses and apartments around you are much nicer, have fancier amenities, and are more renovated than your home. Everyone else you know is getting married, pregnant, and having children, but it’s been taking you awhile. You have a friend that is very popular and it feels like everything she does is more successful than you.
When these things happen, you are “supposed” to feel excited for your friends and to share in the joy of their moment. What often happens instead is that you feel hurt, upset, jealous, or envious. You then distance yourself from your friends, make passive aggressive or condescending comments, or start listing off all the reasons for why you hate your own life. This one thing so easily ruins friendships, self-esteem, and contentment.
Comparison
Comparison is when you evaluate aspects of your life by looking at the people around you. There are three ways that we compare.
Neutral Comparison: This is simply noticing the differences between others around you without applying a value judgement. You are not feeling better or worse about yourself after noticing these differences.
Positive Comparison: This is comparing yourself to someone to make yourself feel more “superior”. You do this to boost your self-esteem when you’re feeling uncomfortable about yourself. As an example, cheering yourself up about how much money you make by comparing yourself to a friend who does not earn as much money.
Negative Comparison: This is comparing an “inferior” part of your life to something you consider “superior” in someone else’s life. This happens when you notice someone having something you deem “more desirable” than what you have yourself. Doing this makes you feel worse about your own life and ungrateful. For example, this happens when you feel bad about yourself for not being as attractive, athletic, or “further along” in life than someone else.
Comparison only becomes problematic when you start attaching Value Judgements to the differences you notice. Value Judgements happen when your mind perceives something as “better” or “worse” because of a external standard. Here are a few examples of problematic value judgements.
Being more rich is more valuable than being less rich
Being more attractive makes you a better person than being less attractive
Progressing further in your career makes you more valuable than the people behind you
Having more or nicer things makes you better than people who do not
Having certain “desirable” personality traits (i.e. being extraverted and social) makes you a more worthy person
Being “further along” in life (self-sufficient, married, has kids, owns house…) makes you more valuable than people who are “behind”
You use value judgements to both make yourself feel better and worse at the same time. All value judgements train your minds to use comparison to manage your self-esteem. Using positive comparison to make yourself feel better will inevitably result in you using negative comparison once you find someone better off. Instead of you finding ways to intrinsically value your own successes and contributions, you become trapped into only valuing yourself when you perform or are better than others.
Breaking free from using problematic value judgements allows you to truly feel better about yourself, have more successful relationships with others, and provides contentment in the life you have right now.
How To Break Free From Comparison
Identify the habit and disengage
Before you can overcome comparison, you need to realize when it happens. Using comparison to boost your self-esteem is just as problematic as ruminating on the reasons why you believe other people are better off than you. After identifying this habit, refocus your mind on something else like gratitude, prayer, or some other helpful activity. The longer you dwell on comparison, the worse your mood will feel over time.Be mindful of triggers
Knowing when to be alert for comparison makes managing it much easier. Here are some questions to consider. Are you comparing when you feel insecure and uncomfortable? Are there certain people in your life that flaunt their success or criticize you? Do certain people encourage you to compare yourself to others? Are you consuming media that makes you feel critical of yourself? Once you’ve identified these triggers, take active steps towards limiting them and preparing yourself to handle them if they can’t be avoided.Start with your own goals and motivations
Comparison makes you feel like its essential to have things that you don’t even want. This makes it easy to lose touch with who you are and what is actually important to you. Ask yourself, what do I want when no one else is around? What do I want to be the driving factors in my life? Spend more energy living into your values and less trying impress others or manage appearances. This is important because comparison never brings lasting satisfaction in life.Focus on actions and not thoughts
If you are wanting to change your life for the better, then you have to make it a priority. Dwelling on how other people are doing better in life than you will drain your motivation and make you feel hopeless. Making yourself feel superior by looking at people who are struggling trains your mind to be mean to others to boost your own self-esteem. Instead, develop a plan for how you can start reaching your goals. Remember though, these goals need to be based off of your actual values and not comparison.Find healthier ways to build your self-esteem and inner peace
Comparison destroys self-esteem and inner peace. Instead, spend time cultivating habits that help you feel more content. This can include pushing yourself to be more grateful and appreciative, reflecting on the progress you’ve made over time, and focusing your energy on setting realistic and achievable goals.Don’t believe everything you see on the surface
As a therapist, I can tell you that people are suffering a lot more than you think they are. There is no such thing as a perfect life that is free from stress and problems. Focusing on comparisons gives you an unrealistic idea about the lives of other people. It makes you assume that people are happier because they have things that you don’t have. People can have all the things that you are deeply wanting and still have anxiety, depression, stress, and discontentment. If you’re confused when you find out that people with “better lives” are struggling, then this reveals that you have a distorted understanding of what actually makes people happy.Stop consuming media that makes you hate yourself
I probably don’t even have to tell you this, but I will anyway. Social media makes comparison much worse. Unfollow pages and people that make you feel self-conscious, hide stories that make you feel envious, and stop mindlessly scrolling through your phone. People tend to put highlights of their lives on social media which gives a misleading impression of how good things actually are.
Challenges For You To Consider:
What areas do you struggle the most with comparison?
What practical steps above can help you overcome comparison in your life?
Are your current goals in life based on your actual values or on trying to impress or compete with others?
