why you need to Stop Comparing Yourself With Others

What is it about human nature that makes us want to compare ourselves with others? When we look better than others we feel superior, we feel like we have meaning in our life. But when we do worse than others we feel inferior and we feel like we are not good enough to succeed even with all the work we put into life.

We compare ourselves with people with more money, we compare ourselves with people with more power, or more social influence. We do all this despite knowing what we should really do.

The need to feel superior to others is a path that only leads to low self esteem and depression.

Here are 6 reasons why you should stop comparing yourselves with others.

1. It Robs The World Of Your Uniqueness

When you compare yourself with others you tend to go down their path and play by their rules in order to show them that you are just as good as they are. But by following someone else’s path you may be diverting yourself from your true passion in life. You may be trying to stand your ground in an area of life that you really do not have any passion in. When you do this you not only rob yourself of a life full of passion you rob the world of the uniqueness you can bring to it by following your dreams.

Are you really passionate about working overtime just so you can afford to compete with someone else? If you are passionate about your work that is great. Keep on rocking it and living the dream. If not would it be better to not work overtime and instead take that time to find something else you are truly passionate about and work on it? You only live once; you might as well ignore the crowd and do what you love.

2. It Often Compares Strengths With Weaknesses

When we compare ourselves with someone else we often compare our weaknesses with someone else’s strength. As humans we want what we can’t have. That is why when we find someone who is able to easily do something that takes lot of work for us to do, we tend to compare ourselves with them.

The thing we forget is that we all have strengths. While you are comparing yourself with your friends they are comparing themselves with you. Even if you don’t believe it, you have strengths in your own life and others are probably comparing their weaknesses with your strengths and feeling discouraged.

3. It Disregards Our Ups and Downs

Life is full of ups and downs. One moment you could be feeling like the king of the world, the next moment you might be feeling like you are hitting rock bottom and have to figure out how to pick yourself off of the bottom. All people have ups and downs in this world. The people you are comparing yourself with may be at a high point now, but they where once at a low point in life and had to work their way up there.

Realize that your low points in life are just temporary and while you are at them it is not fair to compare yourself with someone else at a high point in life.

4. It Leads to Resentment

Another problem with comparing yourself with others is that it can lead to anger and resentment. “why should things come to them so easily when it takes me so long to succeed”.

Unfortunately anger is a path that too many people tend to take. Bringing anger into this world is never a good thing. It only breeds more anger which can lead to violence, loved ones leaving you, and all sorts of bad things. The irony of anger is that when you get mad at someone you often times end up hurting yourself more from stress and side effects of that anger then you end up hurting the person you are angry at.

5. It Distracts You From Moving Forward

If you are too concerned at where someone else is you are taking your attention away from where you are and how you can improve your situation. While there may be a lot of things in this world that you cannot control, the one thing you have absolute control over is whether you are improving in life or not.

As long as you are pushing forward you are on your way to a better life. But the more you focus on others and compare yourself with others the less energy you will spend on improving your own life and the more your self confidence will be shot as those you are comparing yourself to keep on widening the gap.

6. It Hurts Your Self Confidence

When you compare yourself with someone else it will almost surely hurt your confidence and may even lead to depression. This is because there will always be someone better then you at something. You can work yourself to death and still find people who have worked harder then you in life. That is how this world works. Nobody is perfect and there are always going to be people out there who are better then you in different areas of life.

Instead of comparing yourself with others, how about learning to love yourself including your successes, and failures. After all you are unique and nobody is better at being uniquely you then you are.

Remember everyone’s path is different. You may be ahead of someone one day and behind them the next. But the only real thing you can do in life is to learn to love the journey and keep improving yourself in your own way while keeping an eye on your dreams.