If You Must Compare Yourself with Others, Use it to Grow.🌿🌵🌳

Published: Tue, 04/05/22

Start Comparing Yourself to Others It Will Improve You.

Anton Marks

Comparing ourselves to others is almost universally cited as being the worst thing you could do to yourself. To a greater or lesser degree, we all do it. Humans are social creatures, and we have a fascination with how well our peers are doing in comparison to ourselves. I sometimes wonder if it is an evolutionary impulse we carry with us from prehistory to the modern-day.

If he can do it, I can do it too.

We have this insatiable need to watch the members of our tribe and how they progress in an attempt to follow their lead or stop them from growing beyond the tribe's boundaries, whether these boundaries are mental or physical.
In most cases, I'd say to stay away from comparison if you're not strong enough.

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Personally, in my early career, I began comparing my burgeoning skills with the masters and wondered when I'd be as good as they were. Thankfully I was never one to say I was no good just because others were doing what I wanted to do. I still felt that with hard work, I could reach those heights. For me, it was always how long it would take, not whether I could achieve it or not. Instinctively discounting my talents never crossed my mind. All I wanted to do was to carve out my own.
It was a mindset I stumbled upon that has served me well.

The question I must ask is, how do you get better if you don't compare yourself with the best?

Surely a healthy comparison with someone in your field is always a good thing. The keyword in that statement is 'healthy'.

What if you had the ability to look at all the people you're slightly envious of? You know the ones who are ahead of you that you love to compare yourself to and extract lessons from them that could propel you forward. Wouldn't that be more progressive than beating yourself up for not being them?

Putting a positive spin on comparison is a challenge because everywhere you look, everyone sees it as the worst thing you could do.

Not so.

It's not something I take lightly, but it can bring you great results when it's done right. If you can apply perspective, knowledge of self and the ability to ask the right questions, then comparison can propel you forward rather than hold you back.

Choose carefully who you want to compare yourself to and what elements of their method you wish to take onboard.

Comparison is harmful when you give in to envy and resentment or when you use it to blindly copy people. Comparison becomes positive when it shines a light on new methods or qualities successful people exhibit that you can apply to your own life.
Compare yourself to people you admire.

Don't just believe the hype on social media; if they are famous, then read about them through books or articles and listen to them on podcasts. If you're going to compare yourself to someone, don't do a half-assed job. Find out what these people are about. Emulate the parts of their stories that work for you and dump the rest.

Use your comparison as a way of looking into the things you want and things you don't want for your life. When I began comparing myself with Stephen King many moons ago, I wanted to work hard and become as accomplished as he was, but I didn't want the addictions. By comparing myself to someone else's life, I knew what I wanted to do, be and have.

Here's my advice.
By making the mental shift from toxic comparison to learning from someone else's experience, you can begin to use critical thinking to extract lessons that can move you forward in a big way. Instead of letting yourself feel defeated and useless, turn it into inspiration and motivation. Redirect the slippery slope of envy into a positive direction and let comparing yourself to others work wonders for you.

You Got This!