Comparing yourself is harming you.
Truly.
What happens when, say, you get injured and can’t lift as heavy or do as many reps as you could before you got injured?
Or when you realise you’re a bit greyer now than you were at the start of the year. Or a bit plumper. Or you had a great day yesterday, when everything went your way and you felt light and full of joy then today you feel crap and unmotivated. Or your partner doesn’t give you the appreciation you want.
What happens every single time we feel other than content? We start comparing.
We compare how we are now with how we were yesterday, or last week or maybe even last decade! Or we compare ourselves to someone else, either someone we know, someone completely random or someone we’ve been taught to admire, like celebrities. Or we compare ourselves to some ideal we have of how we should be, or want to be. How we wish we were.
Then what happens?
We feel worse than we did to start with! Because now we have two parallel universes going on – one that’s real and what’s actually going on, which is how we feel/look/performed etc, and one that’s imaginary, which is how we wish we felt/looked/performed etc.
Instead of just going with the flow of whatever’s actually going on, we make ourselves unhappy with that and unhappy overall by comparing it to something completely imagined! We’ve actually imagined our unhappiness into existence. It’s such a weird thing to do when you think about it but we all do it. We’re all even encouraged to do it.
It’s time to try something different
The next time you feel unhappy or dissatisfied with how you are or anything in your life, take a minute to see what it is you’re comparing it to. Coz you’ll be comparing it to something if you’re dissatisfied.
Guaranteed.
If you weren’t, you’d be fine with however you are or whatever’s going on. I don’t mean you’ll be happy about it, but you wont be opposed to it. And there’s a huge difference.
Comparison is what is causing your problems
Not comparing, you have no problem. You just have what you’ve got, and you’ll either respond to that in a way that takes care of that or you wont. But with comparing, you have what’s going on, which may or may not need a response from you, then on top of that you have the problem of being unhappy with it.
The sad thing about that is the original feeling or situation, which was all perfectly in proportion with reality, gets exaggerated and feels ten times worse than it really is. Which then makes you work ten times harder to try to ‘solve the problem’ and get ten times more drama and exhaustion, and distraction from everything else in your life, until it’s resolved. All completely unnecessarily!
So what’s the alternative?
This is what I’ve learned through experience. Many times.
Next time you find yourself in this never-ending circle, stop and recognise that you’re comparing. Then ask yourself how you’d feel about what’s going on if that was all you knew and you had nothing else to judge or measure it against.
Does it still feel so bad? Are you maybe even a bit curious or interested now in what you feel or what’s going on instead of being hard on it? Are you still in such a rush to have it over with?
Maybe none of that will be the case, but I can promise you that simply dropping the comparison and just taking things, and seeing things, as they are will be hugely relieving. You’ll get your perspective back. You won’t be so confused about what really needs to be done next. And you’ll have taken all the pressure off yourself to be anything other than what and how you are. And to me, that’s true freedom.
