While working with people, I frequently notice that they try to compare themselves to others all the time.
There might be different reasons behind that: some people do it because they feel worse than others, or they are simply afraid that it’d turn out that they are worse than others, and because of this ongoing fear they feel compelled to always compare, for example, their own outfits to what others wear. They also compare incomes, overall well-being, appearance (wrinkles, weight, height), talents, and achievements. Some people constantly feel an urge to be worse than others. This urge is often unconscious. These people self-pity themselves, and they want others to feel sorry for them and sympathize with them as well. Others seem to those people to be more settled, successful, healthy, and lucky. As a result of this kind of perception, there are two major outcomes: a desire to be treated as someone special, to be understood and to get some privileges, along with the excuse of being more imposing, and a self-served explanation of why he/she is eligible to get more than others. As you might have guessed, this way of thinking is quite irrational and doesn’t do any good to an individual behaving and thinking this way, not in terms of satisfying his/ her functional needs, not in social interactions as well.

In any event, in 99% of cases comparing yourself to others doesn’t do any good to the person who is involved in this process. It might be indeed helpful to draw a comparison between yourself and others, or better yet, analyze others in the following number of situations:

1. You started to work for a new company / moved to a new town/country and are trying to understand what fashion style is acceptable in this new location.
2. In the same fashion, in case you just changed your job /place of residence, you want to understand better social and behavioral norms in this new environment, what is considered to be acceptable, and what not in people’s interactions.
3. Success of others is not something that brings you down. It is quite to the contrary: this way you obtain useful inspiring information about other people’s achievements which are a result of their own efforts, even though initially they might have been in a situation similar to yours. In this way their example can serve as a positive inspiration and a great reinforcement: if they could do it, you would be able to do it as well: “I will be able to accomplish and achieve my own goals if I approach my situation diligently, conscientiously and responsibly.”

What is about all the other types of situations?

As to all other instances, there is no need to compare yourself to others. It will only bring you down, will lower your self-esteem, stir your own negativity and irrational jealousy. Every time someone from your immediate surroundings would speak highly about someone else, you will have a feeling that those other people are better than you. More than that, you might feel that compared to someone else’s achievements and merits yours are not good enough. This, in its turn, can make you feel envious, jealous, offended, and significantly reduce your self-esteem.

Here is a piece of advice on what can be done in order to ward off this unhealthy habit of comparing yourself to others:

People who tend to compare themselves to others often do it because unfortunately, their own parents taught them to do this: “Look at Anna. She is….”, “Your brother only gets “A”s, however you  …..”, etc. The list can go on and on.

Some parents go even further: “Anna is better than you.”, “Your brother is smarter than you.” A Biblical phrase that comes to mind in this type of situation: “They don’t realize what they are doing….”

I empathize with all those who had undergone this kind of treatment during their childhoods. Despite all that, you have an ultimate right to END THIS at this point. Do not put yourself through this again. Regardless of what happened in the past, don’t think about yourself like that, and don’t tell this stuff to your children. Accept yourself for what you are. Without any comparison. You need to understand that those comparisons were invented by your parents, and they are not objective. By creating those comparisons your parents were hoping for the better: they wanted to motivate you to become more proactive and ambitious, to become an overall better you. Let it go. Excuse them. Accept yourself with love.

• If it is still challenging for you to quit this habit of comparing yourself to others, try to compare your own self from today to who you were yesterday. Focus on your own achievements, keep asking yourself:
  “What else can I do today in order to become a better version of myself comparatively to yesterday?” and just do it.
• You got to understand that each and every person is unique in his / her own way. Thus, people cannot be compared. This better / worse scale only exists in the minds of those who are used to comparing themselves with others. The scale is not real. Realization of this will help you to get rid of your inferiority complex along with other biases. It is also
  going to lessen your need of comparing yourself to others until it totally disappears.
• Stop your own thoughts in their tracks as soon as you feel an urge to compare yourself to others. Say “STOP” to yourself, and switch your attention to something else (you can even start doing math since it requires a lot of concentration).
• It is always useful to read affirmations regularly. I do recommend doing this.

Here are some useful affirmations:

Please remember, that those affirmations are only effective if you read them regularly, pretty much on daily basis. You have to focus while reading them, thinking about what you have been reading. You can save this picture on your phone/computer, and work with those affirmations on a daily basis. I hope you found this article useful and beneficial!

All the best to all of us!

Alina Miropolsky