MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors

5 Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

Five takeaways:

Here are five tips to avoiding “the comparison trap” in defining your own sense of personal self-worth.

1. Define what success means to you: Defining your own personal concept of success shifts the focus onto your particular set of values and goals, reducing the tendency to compare with others. It makes your path distinct. Why apply someone else’s path to yours, when yours is so different?
2. Discover your own strengths: Recognize and utilize your own skill, talents, and passions. The more defined and sharpen your skillset, the less you will think that someone else’s success could possibly apply to your own path.
3. Think of the big picture: Remember that people only show you what they want to show you. There is always more under the surface; we are all contending with a particular set of challenges, stressors, and priorities. That is life.
4. Always be a student: Embrace a mindset of continuous learning by positioning yourself as a student with more to explore in life. This philosophy fosters collaboration with peers instead of competing with them. If you see yourself as an artist in the process of creating your masterpiece, you’re less likely to feel inferior when comparing your work to others, and more likely to learn important lessons from those you admire.
5. Focus on small successes: Counter comparison by concentrating on your own small achievements and projects. This approach allows for a sense of accomplishment, even if progress feels minute or incremental. Embrace the process of progress, rather than the destination.

Learning to channel the self-comparison impulse positively can shape your learning and sharpen your own sense of progress.

From Shiv Kumar for Tiny Buddha
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