Dave Shrein

CEO/Entrepreneur

For Those Who Compare Themselves to Others

Ladies, there’s a little secret you need to know about guys. When we’re hanging out, just enjoying wherever we are and a guy comes in who we’ve never met, we are immediately asking ourselves, “could I take him?” No joke. Not that there would actually be a fight, but guys immediately wonder if a throw down happened, what would be the odds of taking the other guy.

Ladies, you’re not off the hook though. You do the same thing except it has more to do with shoes, clothes and hair. When another lady walks in the room you are looking at her outfit and taking in her overall look. While comical, both of these scenarios point to something powerful about humans. We compare ourselves to others.

It’s almost impossible not to compare yourself to others. It’s a gut reaction we do on a daily basis, often without giving it a second thought. However, this can really lead you down the wrong path if you continue to make it a habit.

Scenarios for Comparing Yourself

Let’s examine a best case scenario: you look to someone else and the comparison motivates you to push yourself to achieve that goal that you know you could reach too. You know you’ve got the talent and can very easily achieve their success, you only need a better attitude and a few tweaks in your routine. Basically it’s an, “if they can do it, I can do it,” attitude.

Another way to compare yourself might be to look at someone else who’s made it and then arbitrarily decide that you’ll never get to that level of greatness. You’re not nearly as smart/likeable/innovative enough to even come close to being able to compete with the object of your envy. It leads you to feel down on yourself and perpetuates your inaction as you feel the weight of never being good enough.

The last scenario leaves you frustrated about where you’re at in your life after looking at the successful people around you or in your niche. These successful people are mediocre at best but seem to catch all the breaks. They don’t work as hard as you, they’re not as bright as you, and yet they continue to thrive and you don’t. This can cause you to feel like the deck is just stacked against you, so what’s the point in trying?

Anytime You Compare You Never Win

When you compare what you have, what you’ve achieved, what you’re moving toward to those around you, you always lose because you’re comparing what you know about yourself to what you don’t know about someone else. How did that person really get to where they are? Do you really know the work they put in, the sacrifices they made, the health of their personal relationships, the connections that they started with? You don’t know any of that, and you likely never will.

People often only reveal the things that allow others to perceive them in a positive light. You might not see the hundreds of mistakes, failures and wasted time that went into their end result. That’s why you need to stay true to yourself and, as I’ve heard others say, compare who you are today with who you were yesterday looking forward to who you need to become tomorrow. That’s the only way to really know where you stand as you pursue that dream you can’t seem to give up on.

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