Today's world is filled with opportunities to measure your worth against those around you. Everyone is touting their success on social media and it can lead you to question whether you're good enough.
Perhaps you've found yourself thinking things like:
- My videos don't get as many likes as my competitor's because I lack charisma.
- That fitness guru looks so much better than I do.
- I'll never be able to charge as much for my time as that person does.
It's hard not to categorize people as either being above or below you. But, social comparisons do more harm than good.
Although social comparisons are unhealthy for everyone, there's some evidence that suggests that women draw more comparisons than men. I devoted an entire chapter to the subject in my book, 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do. It's clear that social comparisons will drain you of the mental strength you need to do your best.
No matter how well you're doing, comparing yourself to other people takes your eyes off your goals. And it can cause you to feel bad about how you're doing--because there will always be someone who looks happier, wealthier, healthier, and more successful.
But, you might try to convince yourself that comparing yourself to the cream of the crop will help you draw inspiration. After all, looking at the person who has risen to the top might remind you that you're going to need to work hard to get there, right?
Well, research shows upward social comparisons don't inspire you to do better. In fact, thinking "that person is better than me," fuels feelings of depression and envy.
Or perhaps you're someone who likes to think about the less fortunate in an effort to remind yourself that you're not that bad. But, studies show that doesn't work either--at least not in the long run.
Thinking about people who are struggling more than you can provide a temporary sense of relief. But researchers found that in the long-term,downward social comparisons fuel depression and sympathy--which aren't emotions you want to experience when you're trying to perform at your peak.
Fortunately, there are some things you can do to curb the comparisons. Then, your self-worth won't be dependent on how those around you are doing.
Rather than rank people as better or worse than you, think about what you can learn from others. Viewing people as role models--instead of your competition--will help you stop stacking yourself up against everyone else.
A 2018 study published in Computers in Human Behavior found that people who think, "This person has a view on an issue that I'm dealing with," enjoy better mental health than those who think, "This person is better able to achieve the task than I am."
Acknowledge that other people have a different skills than you or that they have knowledge that could benefit you. Then, you'll be intent on learning from them, not pitting yourself against them. The good news is, you can learn something from everyone you meet.
So the next time you're tempted to think someone else is better than you, reframe the way you're thinking about the situation. Ask yourself these questions:
- What information does that person have that could be helpful to me?
- What I can learn from this individual?
- What knowledge, ideas, or areas of expertise does this individual have that could be valuable to me?
Rather than judge people, stay curious. Look for opportunities to learn and you'll start to see that other people aren't necessarily better or worse than you--they're just different.
I won’t say that it’s easy to stop comparing yourself to others. For most of us, comparing ourselves with others is part of us. When we were little, our parents compared us to our siblings, we were in competitions where it was all about ranking top three, we wanted that sports trophy, and we were made well aware of the competition when applying for colleges. But there comes a point in life when comparing yourself to others does not serve you anymore. If you’re going to do your best work and unleash your unique gifts in this life, you simply can’t be concerned with how you are compared to others. That’s their path. They have nothing to do with you. Here are few ways by which life becomes so much more enjoyable when you stop comparing yourself to others.
1. You actually begin to appreciate the progress that you make, rather than just telling yourself how much less progress you’re making than somebody else. You allow yourself to celebrate victories — big and small and celebrating those gives you the much-needed energy to keep moving forward.
2. Meanwhile, failures don’t hurt as much. You can look at them for exactly what they are — no less but also no more. Before, you made a huge deal out of small failures because you just kept thinking about how much further that put you behind somebody else.
3. When you compare yourself to somebody else, you don’t really focus on your work. All you think about is how quick you are, or aren’t, seeing results compared to the other person. It’s distracting and can lead to poor quality work.
4. There are probably a lot of people out there who would look up to you if you composed yourself as someone who believes in herself and is proud of his/her accomplishments. The second you stop comparing yourself to others, you’ll be surprised to find that you inspire a lot of people.
5. You really cannot be your true self — bring your unique talents and do what just you are meant to do. Comparing yourself to others has a way of clouding who you really are, and what your skills are.
6. When we compare ourselves with others, we often aim to pretend we are something that we aren’t. We want people to think we’re better than we are, so we certainly cannot ask for help because that would be to admit that we aren’t what we pretend to be. Once you stop comparing yourself to others, you can actually ask those who are ahead of you for some advice.
7. Once you free your mind of thoughts of comparison, you can get those creative juices flowing. We are our most creative when we aren’t worrying about something.
Source: Phil Date/Shutterstock
When I was about eight, I came home from school one day and innocently asked my mother if I was “the best.” At school, we had been learning about comparative words like “better” and “best,” and I wondered if I was “the best” at something—maybe piano or reading or spelling?
My wise mother calmly replied, “You’ll never be the best at anything. The world is a big place with millions of people; it’s impossible to be the best. Just do your best, and you’ll be fine.”
I was recently reminded of this conversation after reading about the tragic increase in suicide rates at highly competitive colleges. Smart, popular, accomplished young people from loving families are taking their own lives in unprecedented numbers, a pattern that some experts attribute to the drive to be the “best”—a tall if not impossible order when surrounded by other ambitious high-achievers.
Suicide is highly complex and can never be attributed to a single cause, although depression is almost always an underlying factor. College mental health experts directly attribute much of modern young adults' malaise to consequences of social comparison—comparing one’s own accomplishments, looks, athletic prowess, school grades, or popularity—to their classmates and feeling that they’re coming up short, often with devastating consequences.
It’s not just college students who compare themselves to others. Most of us have compared ourselves to a friend, colleague, or even a celebrity, in a quest to figure out “how we’re doing.” It’s hard not to do when magazine articles celebrate "The Top 40 Under 40,” and yoga clothing catalogs showcase images of CEO moms who build orphanages in their spare time. It’s hard for our own lives to shine in comparison.
Can we wean ourselves from social comparison? It’s easier said than done. Some psychologists, most notably Leon Festinger, believe that our desire to compare ourselves to others is a drive—one almost as powerful as thirst or hunger.
While comparisons can be informative, they’re almost always discouraging, because someone’s always going to end up on the bottom. My mother was not a social psychologist, but she knew that the desire to top others was an exercise in futility.
A better way to figure out "How am I doing?” might be to compare ourselves today to where we were in the past, or to where we want to be in the future.
This process, called temporal comparison, is less well-known than Festinger’s social comparison theory, but there are good reasons why we should rely on temporal rather than social comparisons when taking stock of our lives.
Here are three reasons why using social comparisons is wrong:
- Others’ so-called "perfection" is an illusion. The glorious vacations, the enviable professional accomplishments, the perfect children and spouses we see on our friends’ Facebook pages are just one sliver of their real lives. It’s the truth, but not the “whole truth and nothing but the truth.” A friend may proudly announce the publication of their new novel, but conceal the 12 rejections their manuscript received before being published. We may envy the smiling suntanned family we see on a tropical vacation, although we’re not privy to the fact that the 30 seconds of smiling came after three hours of squabbling and sniping. If we knew others’ whole truths, we might not feel so inadequate when comparing ourselves to their carefully crafted public images of "perfection."
- Life isn’t fair. Some people are born with more advantages than others: A perfectly symmetrical face. Rapid-fire metabolism. Wealthy parents. Social connections that help them score a coveted job. Yet when we compare ourselves (unfavorably) to others, we often beat ourselves up for not trying hard enough. It’s much more likely that the differences we see reflect an uneven playing field. Hard work just isn’t enough sometimes.
- Comparisons turn friends and allies into rivals. In a perfect world, we would celebrate and genuinely enjoy the joys and accomplishments of others. Yet if we use others as a benchmark to evaluate ourselves, that creeping twinge of jealousy may undermine our ability to truly cherish the good things that come to others. Just remember: Over time, things may even out, and a friend’s success may enable him or her to support and make opportunities for others (including you).
Here are two ways temporal comparisons can help us:
- They help to structure our goals. Thinking about where we’d like to be in the future and comparing that to where we are today helps us to structure our goals in sensible ways. Whether we’re an adult dreaming of a career change, or a college student hoping to go to medical school, having a clear idea of what we need to do, what we have been doing, and what’s got to change can help us to take realistic steps to reach our goals.
- They help us to troubleshoot. Temporal comparisons can be thought of us fact-finding missions, on which we find out facts about ourselves. Are you struggling with a two-mile run today, but sailed along a five-miler last week? If so, what’s changed in the past week? These "data" help us to isolate possible obstacles to doing the best job possible. Maybe we got a bad night’s sleep, or have too many work worries on our mind, or have an undiagnosed illness, and our run is suffering as a result. This fact-finding may help us to pinpoint problems that could have otherwise gone unnoticed, and may help us to remedy those obstacles that are preventing us from doing our "personal best.”
By focusing on self-improvement rather than one-upmanship, we’ll have a more realistic and insightful strategy for reaching our goals, and ideally, our friends and loved ones will be there to support us along the way.
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