The Healthy Way to Compare Yourself to Others
They say comparison is the thief of joy. And they’re correct… most of the time. However, the reality is that we don’t live in complete isolation. There are people around us, classmates, colleagues, clients, friends, enemies! It’s only natural to occasionally look at them, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it and compare yourself. The key is to not let comparing yourself to others get out of hand, to ensure that you are looking at relevant factors and that you’re comparing yourself to others for reasonable reasons.
So when is the right time to compare yourself to others and what should you be looking for? How do you make comparison and healthy competition work for you?
1.
Don’t Get Lost
Living authentically means aligning your life to your values and your most inner wants, needs and desires. They should always be your driving force and North Star. What and how other people are doing shouldn’t change your goals or your reasons for wanting something. While it’s natural to glance to your left and right and see how or what others are doing, let only your values and deepest desires guide you.
2.
InterrogateWhy You are Comparing Yourself to Others
Are you doing it to discover areas for possible improvement? Are you taking a look at someone else’s life or career journey to see if you can learn from their wins and losses? I would say this is quite healthy if you are able to be unemotional and strategic about your observations. But if you are comparing yourself to others in order to fuel your negative self talk, discourage yourself or confirm yourself as an imposter, stop right now! An example:
Scenario: Your former classmate just sold his start up and made millions.
Healthy: Looking for inspiration in their story: “I like how he didn’t give up when no one believed in his idea. I’m going to work on not being so discouraged by setbacks.”
Unhealthy: Hate-scrolling through their social media feed, feeling jealous of what they have. Telling yourself that nothing ever works out for you and diminishing his accomplishments to make yourself feel better. Not only is this unhealthy for you it is unproductive.
3.
Consider who you are comparing yourself to?
Make sure you’re not comparing apples and oranges. In other words it would make no sense for me to compare how I looked postpartum to how Gisele Bündchen looked postpartum because we don’t have the same genetics, body types or resources.
Also make sure you’re not comparing ripe and unripe fruit. If you’ve just started a new business, you can’t compare yourself to an entrepreneur who is years into their journey when you’re still in the beginning phase of yours. As stated before you can look for areas to learn from them but you shouldn’t put yourself up against them or feel bad about how well they’re doing.
4.
Ask Yourself Productive Questions
Learn how to use your competitive urges productively. Don’t simply bury the emotions. Acknowledge them, look objectively at the facts and try to channel your observations into productive action. Here are some questions you can ask yourself for specific scenarios.
Scenario 1: Someone with a similar background and experience level is further along in their career than you are:
Are they better or more talented than you are at this particular thing? It’s alright to admit this, some people are. It doesn’t mean you should give up, that you won’t find your own path or have your own wins. It does mean that you should probably spend time discovering and nurturing your own unique gifts, figuring out how to maximize them and analyzing if the company or field you’re in is the best fit for them. So if you’re great with people but your firm only values analytical people, give that a think. If you are not a strong public speaker but those who’ve been previously successful in your role have great stage presence, get with a coach! And so on.
Have they made better decisions? For example, did they leave previous employers at strategic times while you stayed in the same company for too long? This is an actionable nugget that has come out of the comparison which could have a positive impact on your career.
5.
Ignore those Lists
Never, ever feel bad about not appearing on “40 under 40” lists and the like. A not so little secret is that they often come as a result of a lot of PR campaigning by the people who appear on the lists. Not as a result of the people on the list being better than you. A big secret is that a lot of people pay to be featured and publications use these lists as a cash cow. So this is an unproductive factor to consider and shouldn’t be used to stack yourself up against anybody else.
Let your gut, goals and dreams guide you and don’t forget that other people are looking at you with just as much wonder and awe.