How Comparison Jeopardizes Your Progress
Yesterday I uploaded a podcast on ‘How To Be More Confident When Others Are Faring Better’.
We discussed on breaking down why we feel that way, why would our confidence be subjective of what others have or achieve; and how to overcome it.
This article is an extended version of the podcast.
We are living in an ever competitive world today.
For those of us who strive and thrive to meet expectations of not ourselves but others, be it our parents, children, spouse or colleagues, we fall trap in this never ending loop that does not serve us.
When we are good at something, we are pushed to do better, and motivated to achieve something. When we have some achievements or attained the goals we set, we rarely will feel contented and tend to go for more.
In explaining why we feel less confident when others are doing better, more talented or successful than us, the essence of it all boils down to the practise of comparison and competition.
Competition is a source of stress among students because we are setting our own benchmarks against others when we should be benchmarking against who we are instead. What we do and learn in school, we are graded and ranked in accordance to score and results. While friendly and healthy competitions are beneficial to us, it is only useful when we learn and share with each other. If competition is directed towards jealousy, backstabbing or faking sincerity, it becomes unhealthy and has adverse effect on our emotional growth in time to come.
Comparison and competition are two of the more common acts we do among our peers, even within our family. We are exposed to competition and comparisons at an early age, the earliest and more obvious ones could be between our siblings, then extended family members, classmates to family friends and so on. As time goes by, it becomes ingrained in us that we have to be better than someone, if not we are lesser than them. We get ideas like we are not as smart as our other sibling, or as capable, or fun, warm, humorous, serious and so on; and then we get told, if only we are like them!
Why can’t we be ourselves?
At work, we compete with our peers for that supervisory position, that management position or even become bosses of our own, but do we know what for?
Even in life we also tend to compare ourselves against people we come across, say at certain age, when everyone seem to be getting married, and you might feel compelled to settle down sooner than you feel like it. You might start dreading family gatherings when others would ask if you were bringing your partner along or not. Coupled with pressure from family, it is almost too stressful to handle. Even when you have already married, you would get questions like when will you have your first child because some neighbours daughter, who is of the same age as you, already has one or two children.
Some of the material things that we compare include higher salaries, bigger houses, better cars, nicer bags, newer gadgets, and so on. The more intangible ones could be success, beauty, body image, societal status, skills, experience and so on.
While comparing with others may make us feel that we are better and superior to others, especially when we have the upper hand, the boost in confidence will not last long. It won’t be long before we start scouting for the next better player to compare and compete against.
However, if there are no others around, who are you going to compare yourself against?
Let’s think to the times in exams, when you are second in class and try to be the top; or your competitors whose scores are always higher than yours and so you set him/ her as the person to beat in exams. If they scored 80s, you probably aim for 85 to beat them. When you get your papers back, you might find yourself comparing their score against yours.
However, we all know that in exams, the full score in exam is 100%. If we were doing the exams for ourselves alone, how much would you aim to score? Would it be 85% or 100%? Since you are already doing the test, why not aim for the highest with the best you can do?
Why not do the exam as though you are competing with yourself alone, and with your results in the previous term, which you in fact are! When you look at your term results, do you see the scores of others against your score this term? Or would you find your past term results on your booklet?
Furthermore, as you complete school and enter the workforce, your competitor in school may not even be your colleague at work, so why compete with them?
In truth, the only person you should compete with is yourself.
And the person you should compare your results (regardless in school or at work, even in life) is with yourself, your self in the past.
Use the result and achievement you have today, and compare it with your results and achievements in the past 1–3–5 months or years.
Do you see any difference? Would you feel any different? Do you feel pride or otherwise? Have you felt that you have grown much? Do you think you could have done better?
As you progress along in life, as you age, who will be with you in this journey?
You.
Who will be the one who have the power to work on and become a better person yourself?
Definitely you.
So, why would you compare yourself against others?
You are You
What others are good at, you may find yourself struggling, but what you are great at, others may envy your talents and skills as well.
Everyone of us grow up with different upbringing, in different environments, cultures and learning grounds, with varying exposures and experiences. No two individuals will ever experience the same thing, even if we were twins or closest of siblings.
What we experience, feel, sense, perceive, hear and interpret may mean differently to others.
Who you are, is definitely inimitable.
When you take others out of the equation, what / who are you left with?
Let’s put the comparison game to a halt. Let’s stop comparing ourselves against others.
Let’s stop competing for achievements, positions, stuffs that you don’t really want, and start health collaborations.
Start doing things that you enjoy. Do things that you love so much that you lose yourself in the time and universe doing it. Do work that grows your inner self, challenge your limits, let you learn and expand your horizons. Do what makes you smile and do what uplifts you in your bad days.
Start being with yourself, start being yourself.
Set challenges for yourself and improve yourself based on who you are today, be better and as you become better, you open yourself up to more opportunities and challenges. Soon, you will find yourself feeling better about yourself and more confident in time to come.
Remember you are as talented and as successful as others, in your own terms.
Live your life on your own term!
Only by living your life your way, keeping expectations of others out of the way, will you be able to know what you want to pursue, which direction you want to head towards and what you love to work on.
What you are good at may not be what you love doing. What you love doing, you may not be good at them either. However, as long as we keep going and build on it with tenacity, sooner or later, we will be able to master what we love doing.
This, in the eyes of others, then become our talent and eventually our success.
Do you agree? Do you not agree? I’d love to hear your views below.
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Originally published at l3hub.org.
