The ONLY Right Way to Compare Yourself to Others

Do you find yourself constantly comparing yourself to other people? Are you always trying to keep up with the Joneses? Today I want to share the only time that I believe it's okay for you to do that. Hi, my name is Alexandra Niel and I'm a certified high performance coach. I work with women to help them rewire their beliefs so they can rewrite their story and become better friends, better parents, better colleagues, and have a long-lasting impact in their communities, become a change agent in the workplace, and live that joyful, extraordinary life that they deserve. I remember years ago listening to a podcast, and in that podcast, the host was talking about comparing yourself to other people. And I used to do that a lot. I used to compare myself to what other people around me were doing, whether it was, you know, how they looked or how they behaved at work, for example, what kind of success they were having versus what kind of success I was having. And all that did, honestly, was promote that not enough syndrome. So I would, you know, walk away feeling worse about myself, worse about my abilities, thinking that I wasn't where I should be. But I was really looking at all of the wrong things because I was comparing my inner world and what I was working on to their outer world. So there it was really a bit of a mismatch. So I just want to take you through really quickly the wrong way to compare yourself to someone else. And the first one of those is comparing what you have. I don't know if you've ever noticed, if you've ever been in a neighborhood when one person buys a new car, and then a couple weeks later somebody else buys a new car, a couple weeks later somebody else buys a new car, and next thing you know everybody in the neighborhood has a new car and you're the only schmuck who doesn't. And you feel compelled to yourself buy a new car even though it may not be what you need at the moment. So comparing your possessions versus the possessions of other people and measuring your worth based on what you have isn't necessarily the right approach. The second way that you can negatively compare yourself to somebody else is by comparing their results and their successes, um, to versus where you are, right? The thing is, we're all on different journeys. Their journey is different than yours. Your circumstances are different than theirs. And especially when you're in the context of owning your own business, for example, you might be comparing yourself to someone who's been in business for years. They've already gone through all the struggles, they've already had their ups and downs, they've already, you know, made all of their mistakes and learned from them. Whereas if you're just starting out and you're 6 months in and you're in that process of making the mistakes of going through that, that big learning curve, you comparing yourself to what— where they are isn't really realistic because you're not in the same place in terms of the effort that's been put into, um, in, into those results. And there really are, for me, two killer words where that impact where you are and what you want to do when you compare yourself is the 'I wish.' I wish I had this, or I wish I could be that. Well, if that's what you wish, make a plan, find a way to make it happen. But comparing yourself to somebody else isn't really the right way to go about it. Now, the right way to go about it is to one, choose who you want to compare yourself with. If there's somebody out there who's killing it, whether it's somebody in, um, you're in the corporate world or a fellow entrepreneur, a fellow coach, whatever the case may be, if you look up to them, figure out what their process was to get to where they are. If you're going to compare anything, compare the work that they've put behind getting to where they are. Compare the process that they followed. Pick up the pieces that are going to work for you, but, and, and then make it your own. You know, what we see on social media isn't reality. So when we compare ourselves to ourselves to somebody's social media profile and everything that they put on social media, you're really getting that skewed lens of the success that they've had in their life. And it's most of the time completely not realistic because you're not in the same moment in time and because you haven't gone through the same journey that they have. So once you know what their process is and once you've identified the things that have worked well for them that you can use for yourself, that's when you add your secret sauce. That's when you bring your unique circumstances, your history, your experiences, and you make that richer, and you make that bigger, and you develop your own unique perspective. You develop your unique target audience, your unique way of looking at things that people are going to resonate with because they're going to resonate with you. So using your circumstances to your advantage is really the key to successfully, in a way, comparing yourself to others. Look at their process, take the things that they have done successfully. What are the bits and pieces that you can use for yourself? Add in your secret sauce, and then find a way to make it your own and establish yourself in a successful way within your sphere of influence, whether it's in corporate or in entrepreneurship, in your own unique way, because that's how you can continue to be successful. So that's what I wanted to share with you today on comparing yourself. I hope that it has served you, and I will see you in in another week or so for the next set of tips and tricks. Talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.