How to stop comparing yourself to others? In nowadays’ society it’s really hard not to compare ourselves to others, especially because of social media and the “culture of comparison” where it seems like nothing is ever enough.

We are constantly told, directly or indirectly that, our body is not enough, our ambition is not enough, our bank account is not enough, our hobbies are not enough, our career is not enough… that we are just not enough. 

That “culture of comparison” does not only contribute to low self-esteem and low self-confidence, but one of the dangers of comparing ourselves to others is also that we risk losing our true identity.  

We miss a chance to be our true selves, and we eventually end up living a life that is not ours but a life trying to live bits of someone else’s life. 

When comparing yourself to others has become so systematic that it has become a habit, it’s then really difficult to break that loop.

When comparing yourself to others has become a natural thing to do, it does not only bring your self-esteem levels down daily, but that toxic habit also brings lots of negative feelings and energy, so that’s why breaking that comparison loop is so essential if you want to feel more confident and happier.

Do you want to stop comparing yourself to others? Here are seven powerful ways to do so, keep reading!

1. Stop being fooled by a distorted reality

     > An authentic reality

 The thing with social media is that they represent a very distorted reality. What I mean by that is that on social media people often choose to display only certain aspects of their life.

Influencers usually choose to highlight only positive things about their life, they choose to display the most successful things about their life. Whenever they post something new, they make the conscious decision to portray an ideal life they have envisioned. 

But what you don’t see are the moments when they’re feeling sad, when they’re heartbroken, when they’re stressed. And as any human beings, they for sure themselves go through those moments as well, they just decided not to give that image of themselves.

     > An authentic reality that distorted itself!

You see the truth is that people decide to show the very best part of themselves, the very best highlights of their lives on social media. But not only that! Those carefully chosen highlights are even distorted themselves! What do I mean by that?

Well, most of the pictures you see in your feed are highly photoshopped, with a ton of filters added on them. Nothing is ever left to chance in those “perfect” pictures.

Have you noticed?

All the elements in the pictures are usually perfectly set up, there is a nice background, nice decorative elements.

Everything is staged.

So yes we are here indeed, far, very far from reality.

     > Don’t get fooled

So don’t get fooled by this, my friend! What you are seeing on social media is usually very far from the everyday life of those people and what their life looks like daily. 

What people decide to display does not reflect their own reality, so you end up comparing your own reality with the glorified distorted reality of someone else. How fair is the comparison?

I’m not bashing social media here, but I just want to remind you to keep that in mind wherever you scroll down your social media feed. 

So next time you compare yourself to that Instagram picture please keep in mind that it is most likely just a glorified and glamorized bit of life of that person.

2. Take a break from social media

Do you tend to compare yourself to others after spending time scrolling down your social media feeds?

If you have identified social media is prone to make you compare yourself to others, then it’s a good time to take a break from it! 

Remember what we stated previously in the paragraph “Stop being fooled by a distorted reality”?

Social media represents a distorted reality. On those platforms, people decide to show their best self only, showing exclusively the best highlights of their life, but social media certainly does not reflect everyday life.

How to take a break from social media?

It is actually not so easy to take a break from social media. So in the beginning, you might not feel so good because social media is highly addictive. However, once you have overcome the temptation of logging back in you should start to feel better. 

I advise you to start slowly by signing out of one account first. Pick the platform that causes the most comparison, maybe it’s Instagram or Facebook? Sign out of this account or delete the app on the phone for a few days, and see how you feel.

Try it first for a few days and extend it for as many days as you can, and then see how you feel. Do you still feel the need to compare your life to others’ “glamorous” lives?

Or did you gradually start to care less about it? Who knows, at the end of this exercise you might not even want to go back to social media anymore, so give it a try and see how this works for you. 

     > Not ready to sign out completely?

If you feel that signing out completely might feel a bit too difficult at the beginning, I suggest you simply unfollow people that are the source of comparison. Is there anyone that lowers your confidence and your self-esteem when looking at their content?

Identify those people, I’m sure you know who they are. Maybe it’s only one or two people that really triggers comparison whenever you scroll down your feed?

So simply unfollow those people or unfriend them, so you only have people that inspire you and bring positive feelings in your feed.

When you take a break from social media, you will not only feel better but you also have an extra amount of free time! What to do with that free time? The answer is in the next paragraph!

3. Make yourself a priority

The issue is that when you compare yourself to others, you actually end up investing a lot of your time, energy, and mental space in others. And all of that time and energy is time and energy that is not spent on you! 

Focusing on yourself rather than others is absolutely not a selfish thing to do. On the contrary, that’s essential.

For the longest time, I thought that putting myself first was very selfish, I felt it was wrong and that if I did it, it meant that I did not care about others.

But in reality, the person I didn’t care about was myself. 

How to make yourself a priority?

> Focus on yourself

I would advise you to start focusing on yourself by being more aware of yourself, by being more aware of your needs and what you want in your life.

Once you have figured this out, again try to set some goals for yourself. You’ll see that as you are working towards those goals that you set by yourself for yourself, you’ll gradually think less and less about others because you’ll be too busy focusing on improving yourself and achieving your goals. 

> Spend time on yourself

The time you spend comparing yourself to others is the time you don’t spend on yourself, and that time can never be gotten back. Instead, save that precious time for yourself and spend it on your personal growth, investing that time in yourself. 

How do you spend more time with yourselves?

You can easily do it by for example spending more time doing your favorite hobby. Spend more time improving your skills, practice more. Maybe you’ve always enjoyed painting but haven’t done it in a while?

Then It’s a good opportunity to start again! Spend time working on your skills and your craft, and especially don’t forget to enjoy the process! 

You see, when you simply spend more time with yourself and focusing on doing things that you like, you will suddenly have less time and energy at your disposal to compare yourself to others.

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4. Understand that you are unique

We are all different, unique, special individuals so comparing ourselves with others doesn’t really make sense, does it?

It’s like comparing apples and oranges. We all have different backgrounds, different experiences, different family situations, different strengths, weaknesses …different everything! 

You are made of your own complexities and different layers making you the amazing unique human being you are! 

 So a good reason to rationalize is that it’s simply impossible to have grounds for comparison because we are all unique. So why would you even compare yourself to others? 

     > The risk of becoming your unauthentic self

You see, when you are not aware enough of your uniqueness, when you don’t accept and embrace your uniqueness, you are then bound to conform to certain standards, certain norms, and consequently to become a “standard” person…. well forgetting your true self on the way so.

The thing is, no one is expected to conform to certain standards to become a standard person, on the contrary. Being truly yourself is to dare to stand out as the person you really are, even if it means being different from the “norm”.

     > How to stop comparing yourself to others? Embrace and celebrate your true uniqueness

Instead, understand and accept the fact that you are a special unique individual with his/her own gifts and talents. Don’t try to become someone else, don’t try to copy someone else. Be proud of being yourself, my friend!

It’s time to embrace your uniqueness!

5. Be more self-aware of the occurrences 

> Recognize the instances when you compare yourself to others

One efficient way to stop comparing yourself with others is to learn to identify and recognize the moments when you are the likeliest to compare yourself to others.

How to recognize those moments?

I would advise you to consciously identify whenever a comparison to others arises, to write it down, and to keep track of it in a journal.  

Do you tend to compare yourself with others when you scroll down on your social media feed? 

I know that for many of us, social media is a trigger for comparison. 

Do you tend to compare yourself to others when you practice your hobby?

Let’s say as an example that your hobby is singing. Do you compare yourself to others during your singing classes because you feel that your classmates sing better than you do?

Do you compare yourself to others at school when someone else got a better grade than you did?

 Do you tend to compare yourself when you hang out with a certain group of people?

Identify your comparison triggers and simply write them down. I advise you to do it for a couple of weeks. Once you feel you have gathered enough instances of occasions when you compare yourself to others, analyze your “data” and reflect on it. 

     > Anticipate those moments

Once you are aware of your comparison triggers, you’ll be able to anticipate them whenever a comparison arises in your mind.

In practice, it means that whenever you know you compare yourself to others, you can consciously decide to reject the comparison and not to listen to it.

You can decide that this time, you’re not going to listen to it and that it’s not going to affect you. 

You see, becoming more aware of those patterns gives you automatically more control over how to react to them. 

It’s really important not to feel guilty if you don’t manage to do it the first time you try.

Rejecting your own thoughts and breaking such habits is very difficult to do, so be kind to yourself and give yourself time. Don’t beat yourself up when you don’t manage to do it, keep trying, try to stay positive, and pat yourself on the back for even trying! 

If you have identified that you tend to compare yourself when you hang out with a certain group of people, then it’s a good opportunity to reconsider the relationship you have with these people.

If you constantly feel “inferior” when you hang out with these people, then maybe those people don’t have a good influence on you in the end? 

6. How to stop comparing yourself to others? Compare yourself..to yourself!

If you absolutely have to compare yourself to someone, then comparing yourself to yourself is the first comparison because you’ll just be comparing the same person to the other exact same person!

How to compare yourself..to yourself?

There are two ways you can compare yourself to yourself: 

     > Compare your own current self to your old self

The first option is to compare yourself with the person you were let’s say five years ago. To draw the comparison, you can assess various things such as:

What has improved in your life if you compare it to where you were 5 years ago?

Take a piece of paper and write down the things that have improved. This will help you to get some perspective and possibly boost your self-confidence by reminding you of what you have been able to achieve, even if you have not realized it. 

Has your job situation improved?

How about your financial situation?

Do you now live in a better house?

Have you started a new hobby that makes you happier and more fulfilled?

Do you have more significant relationships in your life?

Are you in general feeling happier? Healthier?

Simply write down any improvement. When you take time to reflect on the things that have improved in your life, it lifts up your mood and automatically contributes to boosting your self-confidence 

     > Compare your current self to the person you’d like to become

Another way to set the ground for comparison is to compare your current self to your future self. Here, it’s more about setting goals you wish to achieve.

As you progress towards your goals, take notes of any improvement and achievement, even the smallest one. 

That way, you will really be able to compare yourself to yourself and you can easily see and measure your progress. 

Working on your goals every single day is an achievement itself because it means you have not given up, so write it down and be proud of yourself!

I find that keeping track of your progress and achievements is a great way to keep yourself motivated along the way, and provides you with various occasions to celebrate your success until you have achieved your goal. 

For example, let’s say that your goal is going to the gym every day. At first, you won’t be able to visit the gym every day, but maybe you’ll be able to do it just once a week, then twice a week. Write down those achievements until you have managed to reach your goals and implemented that habit daily.

Give it a try my friend! 

7. Get inspired instead

Do you compare yourself with others because you wish you had their life? 

Often, when we compare ourselves to others is because we wish we had a life of that other person or a particular aspect of that person’s life: we wish we had their job, their house, their family situation…

The issue is that we start the comparison game, it just makes us feel down. Only negative feelings arise.  

But, is that bad to want what someone else has? Is it that bad to want to improve our life? Absolutely not! You see, there’s really nothing wrong with wanting to improve your life.

On the contrary, I really don’t think we should stay stuck with the situation we are in if we are not happy with it. I really don’t think we should be the exact same person from the beginning of our life till the end of it.

I think a fixed mindset is harmful because it prevents us from giving ourselves new opportunities: opportunities to learn, grow, improve, to be more successful, to be happier.

In fact, having a growth mindset is actually a key to improving self-confidence because it means that we are constantly improving ourselves and working on being a better version of ourselves. 

     > Replace comparison with inspiration

However, a healthy way is to get inspired by those people. Instead of feeling bad for not having what they have, how about working towards having what they have?

What if instead of causing bad feelings, those people would actually serve as an example and motivate you to reach your goals and/or improve a certain aspect of your life?

How to draw inspiration from those people?

Well, those people are living proof that it’s possible to have the thing you would like to have in your life because they have it themselves. I mean if they can have it, then you can totally have it too! 

Use their experience as an inspiration, as a path to follow. Ask them how they managed to achieve what you want to achieve yourself.

Ask them about their journey. Learn more about the action they have taken. Follow their steps and use them as inspiration when you lack motivation. 

You see by changing your perspective, the kind of feelings you can get can be literally the opposite.

Instead of feeling jealousy and lots of negative feelings caused, by comparison, inspiration on the contrary brings lots of positive energy that helps you stay motivated. 

Conclusion

That’s it, my friend! How to stop comparing yourself to others? There are 7 ways you can try out to stop comparing yourself to others. Start by trying one of them, the one that appeals to you the most, and see how it works for you. Try out the other ways when you feel ready to do so.

 A Final Note!

When you try out those different ways to stop comparing yourself to others, please remember that you are enough wherever you are right now. Remember that you are worthy, you are enough. So keep on focusing on yourself and surround yourself with encouraging people!

Was this useful? What was your  favorite tip? I’m curious to hear!

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