Why do we Compare ourselves? | Should you Compare yourselves? | What is the right way to do Comparison? | Blog about Comparison

 

In this article, we are going to have a look on 'Why do we compare ourselves?' Is it okay to compare yourselves with others? How does it affect us and how should you let it affect you!

So lets begin with it...

Why do we Compare Ourselves? Why do we feel the need to Compare?

We do the comparisons to determine value of ourselves/someone. We evaluate our abilities by comparing us with others.

Comparison is normal behaviour and measuring ourselves against others is the Modus Operandi of human mind. Its not bad though, it is good because it can give us an idea on where we are in life and how well we are doing isn't it? But hey!, there is the problem in the way we compare ourselves as comparison either makes us motivated to move ahead in life or it makes us feel inferior to others. It depends on the way you look at it.

Let me give you an example; You have taken membership of a gym and decided to board your transformation journey, you were regular goer. You became friends with a fellow gym member and as your timings were same you started working out together.

It’s been a month now and you started to see changes in yourself which is good and inspiring but the results of your buddy were a bit better than yours. Now what happens? Chances are that you feel motivated to do more right? As you both started together and there was not much difference in your achievements at that point.

After couple of months, you stopped going to gym as you had to move to a different city for your job,  new City, new friends, new lifestyle….

One year later, you have left the active lifestyle; already-far from it. No Gym, no activity, sedentary lifestyle.

One fine evening when you were sitting on your couch, scrolling your Instagram feed, with bag of chips munching on it. You saw a pic of your gym buddy, the same friend with whom you started the transformation journey. You noticed that things have changed now, you see him having shredded body, abs, biceps and looking way better than earlier.

…. You start feeling jealous, thinking to yourself ‘how the hell he got that body? And look at me! Why I don’t have that body. We used to go gym together!'

You are now comparing your one month’s efforts to his one year's efforts! Is this a valid comparison? Ask yourself. 

This is a classic case of comparison when you feel inferior, because you are not doing a realistic comparison. Your achievement levels are different here, your efforts are not at par to reach that achievement but yet you feel inferior, jealous, small and what not.

Comparison is good but if you do it in a right way.

Acknowledge and ask question.

        Whenever you feel the need, feel the urge to compare yourself with other, firstly acknowledge it and accept it. Trigger to start comparing could be anything like social media posts, youtube videos, face to face seeing them etc. you just have to accept that you are comparing yourself and start asking 'Why do I feel that way?', 'Why do I feel inferior?' 'Am I jealous?'...

Answer the questions and assess it!

        …Your answers could be, 'I want to do the same', 'I want to achieve the same success', 'I am jealous because I dont have what he/she has'...

Cool, thats perfectly fine if you do feel this way. Good thing is that now you are one step forward towards understanding the cause of your feeling that way i.e. jealous, inferior, small etc.

Lets see, when you say 'I want to do the same' or 'I want to achieve the same success' or I dont have what they have'. Ask yourself , are you putting any efforts? Are you putting all the hard work that they have put? Do you have all the skills to achieve that success? 

Are you running the same race at all or just sitting and watching the other person winning it with their hard work and perseverance?

Was your answer Yes?

Good ! If you are already putting your 100%, doing hard work and constantly pushing yourself further, there is no point of feeling jealous, inferior, small etc. because you are doing what you could possibly do, you are pushing hard on yourself. You are running the same race, Its just the matter of time when you will taste the success. Remember. 'Hard work always pays off'

Was your answer No?

No worries, I know majority of us are falling in this category. Its easier for us to see someone and either judge them or compare ourselves with them and feel small. We compare without taking any actions towards what we feel, want to do.

I compare myself a lot with other people, such as a Youtuber whom I follow, a fellow body builder friend, another blogger/vlogger. I think to myself, 'Why can't I do it?' , 'I want to be a good blogger as that guy', 'I want that shredded body as well!'. See here, I am feeling inferior and somewhat jealous.

Since I found a way to turn this feeling into a motivation, I start asking myself. 'Okay, its good you want to become a better blogger but are you taking any step forward in that direction? Are you writing consistently? Are you upskilling your writing skills? etc' 

My answer to these are 'No'. I am not putting my 100% efforts towards what I want to become. And this is when I drive my thoughts towards not comparing myself to anyone and just keep going. Keep hustling.

Also remember...

We all are built different from one another, our circumstances are different, our problems are different, our situations are different, this is why comparison doesnt' make sense most of the times. So stop comparing, keep doing things that take you forward, keep yourself motivated. You are no less than anyone else......And if you ever feel the need to compare, just apply the logic I mentioned above 😎

If you liked what you read above, below are my other blog posts which you would find interesting too.

Why do we Judge others? | Is Judging someone okay? | What makes us Judge someone?

How to deal with CRISIS? Blog on COVID-19 effects and how to deal with it.

Attributes for Images used in this blog

Photo by Nik Shuliahin, Victor Freitas , Usman Yousaf, Gemma Evans from Unsplash

People photo created by wayhomestudio - www.freepik.com