How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others & Be More Confident

Do you always find that you compare yourself to others? Maybe you compare your achievements or failures against other people? Do you often feel as though others are better off than you are or seem to get more out of life than you do?

Comparing yourself to others can be a very toxic thing to do, however, a lot of us do it, maybe without even realizing it.

If you are constantly focusing on what others are doing and achieving, and then comparing that to your own actions and achievements, you may start to feel negative and jealous, which is never nice.

I am going to be talking to you about how you can stop comparing yourself to others, which should help you to lead a more positive, confident, and happy life.

Firstly, let’s take a look at the negative effects that comparing yourself can bring.

Negative Effects Of Comparisons

Most of the time, comparing yourself can bring negativity and a lack of self-esteem, and it’s never usually a productive or positive thing that you should do.

Here are some negative effects of comparing yourself to others:

• Usually, when we compare ourselves to others, we look at their strengths and focus on our weaknesses, or we focus on their achievements and our lack of achievements. This is not a fair comparison and will often lead to doubt and loss of self-confidence.
• You can end up resenting a lot of people, some you may not even know too well. This is because you may become jealous of what they have and start to dislike them, which is not entirely fair.
• When you are comparing yourself, you may be better than some people and worse than others. You can start to focus on how much everyone has achieved and not what you and everyone else has achieved, which is much more important and can help to make you feel proud of yourself.
• You could also end up talking to others about your achievements and goals you have reached a bit too much, to make yourself feel better, but this can sometimes be seen as over-confident or bragging and some people may not enjoy hearing about it all the time.

How To Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

Now that you know how comparing yourself can affect you and how you may end up feeling after, it may be time to stop doing it. It could be easier than you think, and I am going to help you by giving you 7 things to do that’ll help you to stop comparing yourself to others.

7 Ways To Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

1. Assess Your Self-Esteem

With some people, when they are comparing themselves to others it can often come from a lack of self-esteem. To start to understand why you are comparing yourself to others, it is worth assessing how you feel about yourself and how much self-confidence you have.

If you know that you don’t have great self-esteem then this may be the reason for your comparisons. Try and focus on your self-worth and confidence, work on yourself and not on others around you.

If you can learn to love yourself and focus on your own self-care, this can really help you to stop comparing yourself to others.

2. Appreciate What You Have

When you can do something that helps you switch your focus on yourself, rather than others, this will really help you to stop making comparisons. To do this, try and start appreciating what you have.

Focus on the good things in your life and feel and express gratitude for them. When you are doing this, you start to feel more positive and grateful for your life and can stop focusing on what you are lacking.

Try and write a gratitude journal, you can do this in the evening or morning, and write down everything you are grateful for on that day and memories or things you’ve done that made you happy.

This really helps to focus on all the good things and stay positive about your life, instead of comparing what you don’t have to someone else.

3. Recognize That You Are Incomparable

When you compare yourself, you are often saying that you want to be more like that person, or have what that person has and try and compete with them. This can really cause you to become negative and unconfident, as you are really telling yourself that you are not good enough.

Instead of wishing you were like someone else, you can always improve on yourself and become a better version of yourself. Work on things you are not happy about, know your self-worth and understand how unique you are.

You cannot be compared to others because you are your own person. Try and focus and work on yourself rather than trying to be like someone else.

4. Compete With Yourself

Instead of competing with other people, try and compete with yourself. What I mean by this is, when you compare yourself you often look at what others have compared to what you have, or what they have achieved versus what you have achieved.

Try and take a different approach and start looking at what you have now versus what you had last year. For example, when you are thinking about your career, try and ask yourself are you more satisfied with your job now than last year, or are you happier about your life now than you were last year?

This can really help you to just try and recognize and focus on your own happiness, and not compare yourself to others, who lead a different life to you. This can also help you find areas you want to work on in a non-damaging way.

5. Realize That You Can’t See The Whole Picture

Not many people will allow everyone to see everything about their life, and understandably so. When we look at others and what they have, we are only seeing what people want us to see and not the whole picture.

There are a lot of things that you won’t know about a person and their life, no matter how much you think you know. You are focusing on what people have and what they have achieved. However, you won’t know what they wish they had or what they are lacking in their life, as it isn’t something that people go about sharing.

So, try and think about this when you find yourself making comparisons, and you may start to see a change in yourself.

Just like if someone else compares themselves to you, they most likely have no idea that you are wishing for other things, so don’t be so hard on yourself.

6. Be Kinder Towards Other People

When you compare yourself to others, you may find that you are judging others or being critical of others and yourself. This can put you in a negative frame of mind and you will not be focusing on the positives in your life.

When you are kinder and caring towards others, you can start to be kinder to yourself too. If you can start to focus on the positive things about yourself and in the people around you, you can start to feel more gratitude and positivity for your life and yourself.

Instead of comparing everyone, focusing on your differences and what you and others lack, focus on the positives and things you are thankful for in both yourself and others around you.

7. Focus On Your Own Progress

If you are focusing on others and wishing that you had what they had, you will not achieve happiness or progress.

Instead, focus on how your life is going, what you want to achieve, and what you have already done in your life. When you stop making comparisons altogether and just focus on your own progress in life, it can be a lot easier to start improving and working on what you want to achieve, as well as start to feel thankful for what you do have.

Stopping comparisons altogether can also help you to stay positive and feel happy for others, not jealous.

Try and focus on yourself and how far you have come. Refrain from comparing it to what others are doing.