How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

comparing yourself

 
 

So we have a confession to make.

Lots and lots and LOTS of times we have written advice blogs about how to be a freaking fabulous human being…and somewhere on the list is always “don’t compare yourself to others.” Which is like, awesome, if we told you how to do that. Whoops! Kind of annoying. Sorry ’bout dat. But to make up for it, we’ve written you an even more fabulous blog about how to actually follow through! So follow these few steps to learn how to stop comparing yourself to others, and be on your way to focusing on YOU….and ONLY YOU.

Because you’re so dang cute.

1. Catch Yourself

Seriously. Actually focus on catching yourself comparing yourself to others every day. You will be amazed how often it happens! Because it happens like….all the time. So start paying attention to it. Now. We promise, the more you catch yourself, the more you will be aware of the bad habit, and the more you can actively try to stop. If you go through life unaware of bad habits, there’s not a chance in hell you can do anything to stop them. Why would you? You don’t even know you’re doing them!

Believe us, we know you just want it to stop, so starting paying attention to this nasty little booger. Then you have the battle half way won!

 

2. Find Perspective

It’s never ok to compare the beginning of your journey to ANY point of someone else’s. It’s just not fair. And the crazy part is, you have no idea where the other person’s journey even is! And that’s what gets us the most! We ASSUME everyone else is also at the beginning of their journey, and usually, we are completely and utterly wrong. Whoopsiesssss.

Everyone has their own way of getting somewhere. Your journey will not look like hers, and hers won’t look like his, and his won’t look like yours. It’s just not possible. Remember that you are trying the best you can, and that you are only at your beginning. You’ve made it this far, can you imagine what your life will look like in one, two, three years? I can give you a hint: it will look different than the person’s life you are comparing yours to, because your journeys are different. So there’s really no point in putting lives side by side to see which one is better.

Just have faith that your path is the right one for you, and have fun along the way.

 

3. Express Gratitude

When you are forced to measure up your accomplishments and achievements in comparison to someone else, you should at least be positive, right? So offer yourself some gratitude. List out reasons why where you are in life is absolutely great. Maybe you are just starting out and you are really excited about where you are heading. Yay! Maybe you’re making some awesome money right now. Peanut butter and jealous! Perhaps your personal life is rocking. Aww, romance. So nice.

Whatever it is, express gratitude. Give yourself some positive feedback. Life hardly ever looks as perfect as we want it to, but there is always some good stuff there. So list them! Assure yourself that you have reasons to celebrate. If you do that, your life won’t look so glum anymore.
 

 

 

4. Find Encouragement

Ok, so you accidentally got lost in the spiral of comparing EVEN though you caught yourself, desperately tried to find perspective, and listed off some things of gratitude. But for some reason, the itch to compare is still bringing you down. We get it. So take some things that you are seeing that you desperately want, and put them on your to-do list.

Find encouragement from other people’s successes. Allow them to be your mentors. Be inspired by their work. Whatever it is, let their success further encourage you to keep going. There is room for everyone. Seriously. There are 6 billion people on this planet–there is no way one person is sucking up all of the room for you to shine. No way. I mean, if Elle Fanning thought all of the fame was already conquered by her family via Dakota Fanning, that would suck. Because we like Elle. And she’s supah famous now. We rest our case.

Take away: When we’re snooping on other’s lives, we might as well take other’s intimidating successes and turn them into motivation to do better.

 

5. Dream

Yes–dream. Comparing for some reason makes us feel down about our current state of life, but understand that this moment is only temporary. You have so much time to push and mold your life into what you want it to be. Maybe their life is already happening, but your life is still in development. You get this time to turn it into what you want! So…what DO you want it to be? Dream. Let yourself explore your future without confinements. And yes, someone might be living the exact version of your dream. But that’s ok. In fact, it’s perfect, because you get the rare chance of observing and learning from their mistakes while you’re still figuring it out. Pretty amazing, actually. So, focus on #4, then incorporate it into a dream of your future life.

You deserve it all, so allow yourself to dream it all.

Need some extra help with this comparing business?

We feel ya. It takes some work, and that’s exactly what we do. When you don’t have direction in life, it’s easy to get caught up in other people’s successes. But that doesn’t have to be your life. Your life WILL have direction, you just have to find it. So sign up with us, and we’ll help you get on a path that feels right for you while cutting out the rest. Talk soon!

 
photo by Victor Hanacek

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