11 Ways To Avoid Comparing Your Success To Peers
From focusing on your own goals and aspirations to getting inspired by what makes you envious, here are the 11 answers to the question, “How do you avoid comparing the success of your peers to your own?”
- Focus On Your Own Goals and Aspirations
- Be Kind to Yourself
- Limit Social Media Exposure & Consumption With Timers
- Be Content With Where You Are at
- Repeat Positive Affirmations and Quotes
- The Key is Not Avoidance, but Perception
- You Are Precisely Where You Need to Be
- Focus on Goals Set For Your Business
- Embrace the Competition
- Everyone’s Success Looks Different
- Get Inspired by What Makes You Envious
Focus On Your Own Goals and Aspirations
It is a waste of time and will just cause potential jealousy, resentment, or complacency when you compare yourself to others.
When rating your own personal success you have to focus on what you perceive that to be and what your goals are. Life is not a sprint but a marathon and to use others as a gauge of your own position in life will never result in anything positive. To combat that you need to focus on your own journey and be happy for the success of your peers.
You should change your mindset to share the joy of your peers’ success and use that to fuel your own passion for what you want to achieve. Avoid negative thoughts or comparisons as these are counterproductive and not helping you progress as a person in any way. Create milestones and goals for yourself and immerse yourself in that focus as you are in control of your own journey and success.
Mark Smith, Program Chair, University of Advancing Technology
Be Kind to Yourself
It’s hard not to compare yourself to others when surrounded by the perfect world of social media or TV commercials. We often feel not good enough and think that our peers achieved more success than us. Every one of us has these thoughts sometimes. However, that’s not the way to go. First, your most important task is to be kind to yourself. Every human has a unique path in life, and it’s not fair to compare yourself to others. Why? Because then you forget about all your blessings.
I once read a very impactful quote not to compare our insides with other people’s outsides. The truth is that we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. We are aware of our struggles, but not the ones of others. We can’t see on the path a person had to take to succeed. Likewise, we don’t realize how many sleepless nights it has cost them to get there.
The key lies in being grateful for what you have. Only then can you approach your life with a positive mindset and have a higher chance of success.
Dorota Lysienia, Community Manager, LiveCareer
Limit Social Media Exposure & Consumption With Timers
My best tip to mitigate comparing yourself to others is to limit your social media exposure. Everyone compares themselves to others as a reflex, but the less we exercise this reflex, the less mental and emotional real estate we give to the comparison.Set timers on your phone and computer to limit how much social media you can consume a day. Experiment with how much time you spend and want to spend comparing other people’s lives to yours right now.None of us are on the same timeline. Social media blurs that reality by inundating us with friends on vacation, getting married, being promoted, and so much more. As happy as we might be for them, it’s more productive to spend that time developing your own goals.
Zach Goldstein, CEO & Founder, Public Rec
Be Content With Where You Are at
As an entrepreneur, it is easy to fall into a comparison trap where you are measuring yourself up against your peers. While a little bit of comparison or competition can be healthy and help to push you out of your comfort zone or take your business to the next level, comparing too closely or using your peers’ success as a way to measure your own can be detrimental to your self-worth.
Remember that your business is your business and that you are paving your own path, not cruising down someone else’s highway. Find contentment with where you are at in the journey and give yourself the tools you need to reach your intended destination. Celebrate your peers’ victories and turn to them for advice when you notice them doing something that could be beneficial for your own project.
Johan Hajji, CEO & Founder, UpperKey
Repeat Positive Affirmations and Quotes
If you cannot stop comparing your success, then you can make a habit of writing and reciting positive affirmations. Remind yourself daily that you do not compete with anyone. The fact that your peers reached the top before you does not mean you are a loser.
The only person you are in competition with is yourself. Sometimes, no number of self-affirmations is enough to console yourself, so do not be afraid to turn to the wise words of famous figures and comfort your anxiety by repeating mantras and motivating quotes.
Kate Duske, Editor in Chief, Escape Room Data
The Key is Not Avoidance, but Perception
No matter how healthy our perception of self is, it is nearly impossible to avoid comparing ourselves to others. In truth, there will always be someone who is more successful than you – or at least it seems so. The measurement of one’s success always comes from knowing their background and story, which we almost always lack when it comes to others. So, do not perceive someone’s success as your failure – you have different stories.
Sasha Prylypska, Product Manager, Elai.io
You Are Precisely Where You Need to Be
It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others based on arbitrary markers society tells us are important but it’s far more important to love your own life.
What does success actually mean to you? What does a successful life look like for you? It may be that you’re judging yourself off metrics that don’t actually matter to you. It’s also possible you notice that there are things you’d like to cultivate in your life. That’s great information.
You get to build the life of your dreams but you’ll never do that by comparing yourself to someone else.
Alexandra Mollon, Somatic Coach, Alexandra Mollon LLC
Focus on Goals Set For Your Business
Comparison is the quickest way to ruin your success. Comparing your successes to another business diminishes everything you’ve done for your business. Success is subjective, what is successful for your business may not be the same for someone else. I avoid comparing my success to others by focusing on the goals I set for my business and how I can achieve those.
Savannah Bilbo, Sr. Content Coordinator, Online Optimism
Embrace the Competition
When you’re surrounded by others, it can be difficult not to compare your success to those around you. However, it’s important to remember that success looks different for everyone. Instead of viewing your peers as your competitors, it can be helpful to view them as your allies and think of their achievements as motivation. As you make time to ask others how they achieved their success you can use what you can apply what you learn and create the success you want.
Jay Abt, Founding Partner, Abt Law Firm
Everyone’s Success Looks Different
It’s important to remember that everyone’s success looks different and everyone is on their own career path. Each person has had different opportunities and no one’s journey will look the same. The best way to avoid comparison is to view your own strengths. What have you excelled at in the past and where are you heading? There’s no need to beat yourself down when you have so many opportunities heading your way.
Lindsay Malu Kido, CEO, Empower Pleasure
Get Inspired by What Makes You Envious
Jealousy is not a virtue but, though shameful at times, it’s natural for human beings. You don’t need to pretend that it’s not there. Use it constructively instead. How about getting inspired by what makes you envious? You can harness that inspiration for your personal and professional growth. Think about qualities you admire in others, the skills they possess, and the way they act. What can you do to adopt, in harmony with yourself, at least some of them? Would it make you happier indeed? How would your life be changed then? There will always be someone more successful than you. And less successful as well. That’s the natural order of things. Life looks like this, and there is nothing we can do about it. Instead of wasting time on pointless comparisons, be a careful observer and turn jealousy into inspiration.
Agata Szczepanek, Community Manager, LiveCareer
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