How to stop comparing yourself to other- 14 realistic tips to stop comparison

Stop comparing yourself to others, life is not a race and you don’t need to be first, second, or third to reach the finishing life (wait, the finishing line of life = death). Life is like a never-ending scrolling media platform where you find someone better in nearly every aspect of life.

The reality is that you are actually perfect the way you are, you don’t need anyone to compare your potential and ability. There is no one like you. so, why you are pretending to live others’ life and if anyone is like you only you?

If Mango trees try to be like a Coconut trees and produce coconut, then you never could enjoy Mango. Everyone is different and that is the beauty of this World. We all have different abilities, and different skill sets, and what we can do no one can do it better than us.

Basically, you don’t need to have any comparison to anyone, you just need to be your own best version in your desired field. Life is always you vs you.

What happens when you don’t stop comparing yourself to others

Basically, you compare yourself to anyone when you feel less than anyone and have insecurities about your position. But do you know the side effect of comparing? Here is the list.

  • it takes the joy of accomplishment from you(when you comes number 2, the comparison of being number one take the joy of what you achieved till now )
  • Comparison is the thief of happiness and reason of distress. (You never feel happy after comparing yourself to others)
  • Comparison shifts your focus to the wrong person, and eventually, that is not great for growth. (You start focusing on others’ journey and result you ended on the losing side.)
  • You feel jealous of the person whom you compare with you, resulting in that you closing the door of learning. (and reality is that you should learn from that person)
  • It cost your time and energy without any reason.
  • You become morans and start to enjoy others’ defeat. (You start to think that if your winning is in the defeat of others.)
  • May damage your self-confidence and self-esteem.
  • You disrespect the efforts of your own and others (Comparison force you to see the result not efforts and struggle that anyone made)

The reality of life is that you are special on this planet and no one is like you in the world and the more real thing is that you are not a product that you should copy others or force to be like another product.

Comparison is the root of many problems. The more you compare yourself to others the worse you start to feel about yourself. So, stop comparing yourself to others from the next minute.

Here are some realistic tips that help you to stop comparison with others and live a peaceful life.

14 realistic tips to stop comparing yourself to others

1. Accept yourself

Accept yourself the way you are and where you are now.

You can’t change something if you don’t acknowledge something and that is the same in the case of self-comparison, you can’t change something in you until you accept the real you.

You compare yourself because you are not happy with yourself and want to replicate other’s life. Believe me, you can’t be happy until you want to live your life

Accept yourself with the problems that you have, accept yourself with your all pros and cons, and then start living your life again.

You find when you really accept yourself as the way you are, you don’t need any criteria to compare yourself. You are enough for yourself.

2. Accept that things will take time

Nothing can happen overnight.

Whether you want to be a dancer, speaker, athlete, teacher, entrepreneur, or employee of the month, everything will take time.

But When you compare your performance with the result of someone’s hard work of 10-20 years, you have gone hurt yourself.

When you start to work on something and focus on the result first instead of the journey, things will definitely go messed up.

Have patience with yourself things will take time, nothing will happen eventually. Continue your efforts, your goal needs some time. and your competitor(we don’t want to use this word) is there because he/she starts much before you.

3. Accept that it is okay to be not perfect

Perfection is a myth, and no one is truly perfect.

Everyone has good and bad qualities, and you will mind someone is better and worse than you in a certain field. and if you start to compare yourself to others then you are trapped in a never-ending list of comparisons.

If you searching for perfection then you chasing a mirage and it will go far for you when you feel that you need perfection.

4. Identify your trigger point of comparison and find the solution

Try to identify the trigger point when you start yourself to compare with anyone. We discuss the 5 most common trigger points and try to give a solution in one line.

  • When you feel low or have self-doubt- Here you need to work on your confidence instead of comparison, if you don’t stop comparing you may damage your self-confidence more.
  • When someone’s doing better in a certain field- It is a matter of joy that some get succeed, you should learn from them by dropping your egos.
  • someone chooses another person over you- You can’t change anyone’s choice if they choose another person over you that may better understand and they feel more connected to that person. it is most common in relationships but your comparison couldn’t change any result but may hurt your sentiments.
  • When you perform poorly- You perform badly and start to focus on others, your result may go worse. Instead, you focus on your journey.
  • When you see a post on Social Media- No one shows reality on social media(in most cases), they just highlight some happy moment, not their whole life. Likes follow, images, and videos can’t be criteria of comparison.

These are some common examples of trigger points, we need to handle them carefully to stop comparing ourselves.

5. See efforts instead of the result

There is a wrong assumption that you need to be number one otherwise finish. it may be a good thing to be to score good but only care of the number 1 position could take you the joy of being second or third. It takes you the joy of getting a Pass.

We may hurt ourselves when we start to compare someone’s result to our efforts. If you compare yourself with the legend of any field you feel bad for yourself.

And basically, there is nothing wrong to say that there is only time and hard work difference between you and any legend(it is just an example, we never force you to replicate someone’s life, live your own in your own way)

The best thing will be should pay attention to the journey, and focus on your efforts, it always gives the best result for you (which is getting better each time)

Believe in progress, there is only your effort that will give your better result. The result will be better for which you have made great efforts.

6. Focus on the right person (yourself)

Who is the most important person for you? it is you for yourself.

You need to be on your side to get something in your life. You need to focus on your performance and on making yourself better from yesterday each day.

If you focus on comparison only then you never get aware and your competitor starts living in your mind.

Yes, you should learn from them, learn their strategies and adopt good things from their life but if you want to replicate them then, believe me, you lose yourself in that progress.

Focus on yourself, if you are able to make yourself 0.1% better than yesterday, then you will eventually grow in life. Think about it.

(1.01)365= 37.8 and (0.99)365 = 0.03

7. Compare yourself with you

It is you vs you all the time, make sure the better version of yourself wins every time.

If you have a comparison to anyone in life who is only with you, stop comparing yourself to others. Your target is to make yourself better from the previous day.

If you follow a goal, then make sure to analyze your monthly or weekly efforts and performance.

Do self-talk, self-analyze, and self-comparison to make yourself better. Remember that your priorities are to make your life better not to live others’ life.

8. Don’t compare your worst to anyone’s best

The biggest mistake we did that we compare ourselves to anyone whom we do not know anything about.

We compare when we have self-doubt about our abilities or feel low but that’s the time we compare ourselves to someone’s best.

This is not a neck-to-neck comparison, you know everything about yourself but you didn’t know only the upper layer of the person with whom you compare yourself. You can’t compare your inner you to someone’s just outer layer.

Stop comparing, you can’t compare someone’s best to your worst. it will feel you down every time because whom you compare with yourself is started before you and do more hard work.

9. Focus on your strong point

When you feel jealous or down after comparing yourself to others then to stop this, you need to focus on your strong point.

Think about the achievement that you have achieved till now, think about the things in which you have confidence, and think about your best ability.

As we can’t compare a monkey to a fish for its swimming skill, we can’t compare humans.

We all are unique and have unique abilities, but in order to replicate others’ life, we forget to live our own lives. We need to focus on our strong points to feel more confident with ourselves.

10. Enjoy the success of others

If your collogue gets an employee of the month trophy or doing well in their respective field then you need to enjoy this.

But if you start to compare yourself with them then you get jealous of them and disrespect their efforts to reach there.

it is a genuine thing that if someone gets succeeds that means they try more than you, they fail more than you, they struggle more, they put more effort than you and result in they get success more than you.

You need to stop comparing if you start to enjoy other defeats. There is nothing like winning in another’s defeat.

11. Turn comparison into inspiration

You could learn many things from a successful person but if you start to compare then you stop learning. You can learn from their success, you can apply their secret to success in your life.

But if you don’t stop comparing then you miss the chance to learn from them. If they achieve something, that’s because they know more and work hard to get this.

Successful people in any field have great potential, they know something better that could help you. But if you don’t enjoy them, you never learn about their success.

Keep your head cool, they are inspiration more than a comparison.

12. Social media is not a measure to compare

Every coin has two, one which is shown and another one which is hidden. Not everything you see on social media is real.

If someone posts a smiling image that doesn’t mean that person is happy throughout the day.

They just highlight their best part of life or day to their social account, you don’t know their struggle and life but start to compare yourself with them, you just know the friction of part of them and know everything about you.

It is true, that if someone has the opportunity to tell their winning story, they only say the things that make them great, no one shares the story that could make them the villain.

So, be careful, social media is just a mirage, you all followers maybe not be your fan.

13. Accept that you are unique

There is nothing like you in this world, and whatever you are capable of doing, there is no one that could be better than you.

But we are losing this uniqueness to become like others. Believe me, you are special and you don’t need any comparison test to prove this.

Have belief in your best ability, and do whatever that’s you want. Don’t even try to copy another one’s life, you can’t be happy.

14. Stop comparing because there are endless things to compare

There are endless things to compare and if you start to compare yourself to anyone then you are stuck on an endless list.

Someone has a better nose than you, someone has longer hair than you, he is taller than you, someone scores better than you, she is beautiful than you, someone is smarter than you, they have more cars than you and on and on…

These things never end you will find smarter than the smarter, beautiful than the beautiful, richer than the richer. There is no one is perfect in life. Job title, income, grades, health, house, cars, and Facebook likes, Instagram follows – the number of categories in which we can compare ourselves to others is infinite

You are precious in the way you are, you don’t need to live like other life, you just need to own your life.

At a Glance

Purple Orange and Green Bold & Bright Impact of Charity Activities Infographic by Shivam Gautam

There is nothing good in comparison, comparison makes us frustrated, anxious and shifts our focus to the wrong place. And these things never be good for growth.

Comparison wastes your time and energy. and the more you compare yourself to others, the more you feel worse about yourself.

Shift your focus to yourself and your journey. Stop spending your valuable time and energy on others, take them back and invest in yourself.

You always get what you working for, and that’s means you should work on your life, and stop comparing.