Comparing Yourself to Others

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Quote
"By your own soul, learn to live
And if men thwart you take no heed.
If men hate you have no care.
Sing your song, dream your dream,
Hope your hope and pray your prayer."
-Pakenham Beatty

My Thoughts
A few weeks ago, I mentioned about asking yourself how bad is your situation when you are feeling down. This is a comparison to someone else who's situation is worse of than you. That method is a great way to start to look at your situation from another perspective.

This week I'd like to talk about two dangers associated with this.

The first is that you use the technique and then start to become vain. Example: How bad is my situation compared to the homeless person I see every day?
Not so bad.
I am better than that homeless person, why is he/she so lazy? etc...

Obviously that is an over simplified example, but it can happen. We need to be cautious of this.

The second one is possibly even more dangerous. This is when we compare the opposite way.
Example: My friends that are the same age as me are all way more successful than me.
I should be more successful.
Why am I not successful?
I feel miserable.

I've noticed a trend over the last two years or so with many coaching clients. Many seem to be doing the second method of comparing quite frequently and the internet seems to have increased this. The main culprit appears to be Facebook.

Facebook is a great way to reconnect with, or stay in contact with, relatives, friends, classmates, etc.. But we must remember that most of what we see on Facebook is the image that that person wants to show off to the world (in many cases).

I know many of you know this already, but it can be difficult to remember when we are feeling down. Generally we are not seeing the real person, it's just what they would like reflected to everyone else.

Then we end up unhappy because we assume that everyone else is happy. The truth is we have no idea what is really going on in their lives. Even the people we are close to, oftentimes we don't really know what's going on in their lives.

I encourage you this week to see how often you make these comparisons. Then start eliminating them. When you find yourself comparing, remind yourself that you don't really know what's going on.

Look at your own life. Ask yourself, "What can I control?", "What can I do", these two questions can lead to some powerful growth when you spend time reflecting on them.