How to stop comparing yourself with others (in 6 easy steps)

Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash

Have you ever been a victim of your own mind? Mindlessly scrolling down that newsfeed and ended up anxious about yourself? Have you ever wanted to be someone else? Have you ever compared yourself with anyone?

I guess we all experienced these and even became a victim of our own thoughts. At some point, we often don’t really want to feel that way, but we can’t help ourselves but to be envious of where those “people” are now.

But…

Have you ever thought why is this happening to us?

According to the research of the psychologist Leon Festinger, which proposed the Social Comparison Theory in 1954, this is an innate drive for us people to evaluate ourselves and often in comparison with the others. People make all kinds of judgements about themselves, and one of the key ways that we do is through social comparison or analyzing the self in relation to others.

It is part of our human nature to assess ourselves by comparing with anyone. How can you say that you are doing good if you won’t compare with anyone? How can you assess if you work faster than anyone if you won’t compare? This is often our innate behavior whenever we wanted to assess ourselves.

However, as the social media become more and more dominant in these days, we become unaware on how often we compare ourselves. Leading up to the point that we harm ourselves and becoming more anxious, instead of doing some actions. At this point, we need to be aware on how our thoughts run this external stimulus. We are often led to harmful thoughts, that instead giving us motivation, we ended up poisoning our own mind slowly.

The following are some of the steps for us to cease this endless comparison with others. This will help you to use these thoughts as your advantage and not as something that holds you back to face life.

1. Find your trigger and cut it out!

The most prominent trigger that we all encounter is the “Social media”, I am not telling you to totally remove social media in your life (which I actually did, deleting all those apps that I know that won’t give any additional value in my life) but take some time to be aware on what are the things that triggers you.

Watch yourself, be aware of your thoughts, and identify which person or posts that triggers you the most, to look down on yourself and pushes you to undermine your life. You need to cut it, as it is not giving you additional value on your life. When you are scrolling on your social media, the moment that you’ve felt it…cut it out!! Remove it or hide it in front of you, this would help you avoid those negative thoughts that will just ruin your day.

As you progress on this, gradually eliminate those that cause you to feel bad on yourself. Slowly, you will be more focus on yourself and the good things about “you”. The truth is, sometimes you are too busy looking at the other people’s life that you forgot to look at how amazing your life is. You just have to remove all those distractions and cut it out, then just focus on how amazing you are, and you can be.

2. Step back and be grateful

When we are at the seafloor of all those thoughts and drowned with all the things that you wished you have. Always remember to “Step back”, this is like your reset button when everything fails. You need to think outside the box and see life as it is, every people have its own unique talent, skills, beautiful aspect in life, and what we always forget is to appreciate those.  We often drowned ourselves with these endless possibilities and “what if’s” that we forgot how amazing our life is. We often forget to remember how amazing we are that we are here at this very point of life.

What I can suggest to you to make it more effective for you to appreciate life is, each day, write 2 to 3 things that you are grateful about your life. Do this each time you wake up or before you sleep. This helps you to find something that you should be grateful for. I know you are thinking that there is nothing, but I am telling you that THERE IS! You just have to find it and be grateful with it!

Once you started doing this, slowly, you will notice that things are starting to be fine and become a lot better. Remember, life really depends on how you look at it. If you look at it as unfair then it will always be but if you look at it the other way and you will certain be right! We are often on the other side forgetting to see the beauty of life, but we all just have to see it to start appreciating the small things around or about us and everything will start to change.

3. Compare with yourself…

Remember the first time that you recite in front of everyone? Remember when you teacher scolded you? Remember when you fell out of the bike? Remember when you are too afraid for a class presentation?

We all experience this but look where you are right now! I know it may sound absurd, but you are better now more than ever! We all experience fear and regrets in our life during the past, but we are still here fighting and doing great! We may have failed a little, but this won’t stop us from achieving everything that we wish for. What I’m telling you is that if you see who you are a few years ago you will be surprise on how much you’ve improved. Either physically, mentally and other aspects of life, we often forget how much we’ve improved as we are comparing our life with others who has a different journey.

That’s our common mistake, we often see the best of the other people and look down into ourselves, that we forgot how great we’ve become. FORGIVE YOURSELF! SEE HOW GREAT YOU ARE NOW AND DO YOUR BEST AGAIN.

COMPARE WHO YOU ARE BEFORE AND YOU WILL SEE HOW GREAT YOU BECAME AND YOU CAN BE.

4. Journaling

I have some articles about journaling, and I can’t help myself on sharing how magnificent this can be in your life. From habit tracking, to goals achievement, to awareness, you name it! The purpose of journaling is for you to be aware of your thoughts, looking beyond your thoughts and by watching yourself allows you to be conscious on your decisions and avoid or replace those thoughts that’s giving you harm.

Refer to this link for the benefits of having a journal.

When you started listing down your thoughts, you have this chance to assess how you think, which is critical as we don’t often do this. The daily or weekly habit of doing this gives you a sense of self-assessment that allows you to think outside the box. Thinking beyond what you are capable of. Now try it for yourself and see the magic in doing this.

5. Turn it around!!!

As I’ve mentioned earlier, it is not always bad for us to compare as it is part of our human behavior. All you need do is to take it positively, see others not as something that you will be never or achieve but something that will give you motivation to be (does it makes sense with you?). Instead of looking “comparison” as unhealthy thoughts of giving your mind a harm, treat it as vitamins or a force that pushes you to do more and be more.

At the end of day, it is all about your perspective!! It is the gift of free will that we can choose whatever we wanted to believe, and this is your choice. Look at the better side rather than resenting on those things that you don’t currently have, transform it into something that fuels your drive to be the best version of you.

6. Replace you bad habits

It may sound far from the comparison that we are discussing but remember that 60% of our actions each day are part of our daily habits. When you started to do this unconsciously and continuously you’ve started to make it as part of your habit.

We have created an article that teaches everyone to form their habit in the easiest way and the most practical way. You can check the link here.

These habits of comparing yourself with other are putting you deeper and deeper. And will eventually drown you in your own thoughts. By replacing this habit with a good one, you can eliminate these thoughts and focus on those more important things and will surely allow you to have a broader and better perspective of life.

Now which habit you want this to be replaced with? When the time comes that you caught yourself comparing do something different, with this, you started to change and replaced those bad habits. Do this and you will be amaze!

 

Now, do you know anything that helps you stop yourself from comparing with others? Share it! Let everyone knows how you’ve managed it!!