Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy – How To Conquer It
It’s a bright, sunny Thursday and you are scrolling through Instagram when you stop and all of a sudden feel a sinking pain in the pit of your stomach.
You’ve just come across someone who is killing it at the same thing you are trying to accomplish.
You wonder why you aren’t where they are?
Why are you so far behind?
What’s wrong with you?
Maybe this thing isn’t for you.
You feel like crap as you set your phone down and get back to your day. An overwhelming feeling of failure and defeat comes over you.
Comparison Is the Thief of Joy
If you’ve experienced the above scenario, you know that comparison is the thief of joy. It pops up when you least expect it and it can stay with you for hours, days, or even weeks later.
In this day and age with social media everywhere, it’s hard to not compare yourself to what you see on the internet. It’s right in your face.
But there are ways to overcome it so that comparison isn’t stealing your joy.
Comparison Is the Thief of Joy Myth #1 – What You See on The Internet Is True
Let’s clear something up right away. What you see on social media and the internet is not the full truth. It is simply a moment in time.
So, if you see someone who always seems to be happy and successful, understand that it isn’t the full story. They likely have gone through tons of ups and downs to get to where they are.
They are simply posting a picture of a moment in time when they were feeling great, confident, and successful. You don’t even know if this is true just by reading the caption. They could be making it all up.
I find it’s best to connect with your intuition if you decide to follow someone or work with them. Notice how you feel when you see and watch them.
If you feel that something is off, trust that! Or if you feel inspired and excited, trust that!
You know those pictures you see of people with happy families, smiling and looking all perfect? What you don’t see is that for 95% of the day the kids were fighting, their mom was stressed out and it was total chaos.
They may have captured one good shot when everything was good but don’t for a second think they are perfect and their lives are perfect. You are only getting a small glimpse into someone’s life.
People don’t often post the times they are on the bathroom floor crying non-stop because they think they failed at something or something didn’t work out. Trust me, I’ve been there, and no one has ever seen it.
How to Not Let Comparison Steal Your Joy
1. Pay Attention to Your Feelings
Notice how you feel before you go on to the internet, during and after. If you feel good and then start browsing social media and feel terrible – stop.
Stop as soon as you notice that comparison is changing your energy. It’s really about being mindful of how you feel when you do certain things.
Your feelings are very important to your success. If you feel great and motivated, then you’ll try hard with your goals and be consistent.
But if you feel defeated, like you aren’t good enough and why even bother? Then you won’t try as hard and won’t be as successful.
It’s super important to pay attention and protect your energy when you are going after your goals.
2. Everyone Starts Somewhere
If you are comparing yourself to others, understand that everyone starts somewhere. They likely didn’t start at the top either. But after years of hard work, struggle, and failure, they achieved their goals.
It’s actually quite motivating to look at others who didn’t start out anywhere near the top and how they climbed out of that hole, persevered, and eventually got to their goals because they were determined enough.
They could have quit many times but didn’t compare their success to other people and say,” it only took them 5 years but I’m on year 10 and I’m still not successful so it’s time to quit.” Nope, they didn’t do it.
Take for example, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colonel Sanders. He failed 1,009 times before he became successful and wasn’t successful until the age of 65. It’s never too late to go after your goals!
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3. Notice the Things You Like About You
When you are down on yourself and comparing yourself to others, take a step back and look at all the things you like about yourself. When comparing yourself, you tend to look at all the things that are wrong with you.
Look at what you do like and the qualities that you admire about yourself. When you do this, you shift your perception and create an empowering view of yourself.
Next time you catch yourself playing the comparison game, I encourage you to sit down and write 10 things that you like about yourself.
4. Practice Gratitude
Being grateful will help you to bring more things to you to be grateful for. I’m going to get all law of attraction right now – but if you are focused on what you do have, you’ll create more things to be thankful for. Your energy will bring more abundance to you.
It also switches your perception. Perception is everything and seeing things from a different perspective can help you to see something that you couldn’t before.
For example, I was doing a puzzle and could not find any more pieces where I was sitting. So, I decided to switch spots and move to the other end of the table. All of a sudden, I found a bunch of pieces for the previous section I was looking for.
What changed so that I was able to complete more of the puzzle? The only thing that changed was my perception. Yet, I accomplished more simply by switching the way I was looking at it.
The whole point is that gratitude shifts your perception of yourself when you are comparing yourself to someone else.
5. Focus on Abundance (Vs. Scarcity)
When you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else, it may be because you are focused on scarcity vs. abundance. So, you may be thinking because this person has all these things, there’s less for me. Or there’s no room for me.
This is simply not true. There’s room for everyone and once again it comes to perception and how you are looking at it.
If you have something to share with the world and are afraid that there’s no place for you understand that you are unique and you bring unique gifts.
So, while someone else might be doing great and successful they have special unique qualities that attract certain people to them, just as you do.
There is no other you in this world. If you have a feeling that you want to do something, it’s because there’s something inside of you that knows there is room for you. You wouldn’t have this urge if there wasn’t something that the world needed from you and only you.
6. What Have You Accomplished
When you find yourself comparing your accomplishments to someone else and feeling terrible for being so far behind or not where they are, look at what you have accomplished.
Write down a list of everything you’ve accomplished in your life (even if it isn’t related to your current goal.) No matter how big or small, bring your accomplishments to the surface and feel them again.
This will help your confidence to see that you can accomplish things. Appreciating even the smallest things you’ve done will totally shift your perception.
Also, every time in the future you have a win, celebrate it and recognize it instead of thinking it’s too small or not good enough. It’s the small wins that add up and eventually equal the big wins. They are part of the process of achieving your goals, so embrace them.
7. Appreciate the People You Compare Yourself To
It can be super hard to appreciate the people that you are comparing yourself to when you are envious of them. It can be painful to see them and wonder, “why am I not where they are. Why are they so special to achieve great things but I’m not?”
Trust me, I get it. However, if you can appreciate them it will shift your energy so that you can begin to attract more of the qualities they have to you.
You are following them for a reason. It is because there is something in them that they have that you want.
You have this something inside of you too. It’s just a matter of uncovering it.
When you can appreciate them (not put them on a pedestal though), it opens up the doorway to allow you to see what you need to see from them. What qualities do they have that you’d like to incorporate into your life more? Once you see this, you can then begin to embody it.
Final Thoughts – Comparison Is the Thief of Joy
Comparison is the thief of joy and will rob you of your good feelings if you let it. It’s up to you to not let it steal your joy.
Everyone is on their own journey and there are many pieces of other peoples’ stories that we don’t know. This makes it really hard to compare on the same level because you really don’t know what they are going through and what they’ve been through.
You are on your own unique journey and things will unfold for you in perfect timing as they need to so that you can have your own unique experience.
Shifting your perception can really help you to see things about yourself that you didn’t see before. It can help you to look at things with a more abundant mindset and therefore create more of that abundance for yourself.
Next time you find yourself comparing yourself to someone, try one of the tips above to completely shift your perception and mindset to an empowering one that will benefit you.
~Meghan
