Monday, April 2, 2018

Why comparing yourself to others makes you unhappy


Recently I braved my way through public speaking.
I was given the challenge to do a talk about acceptance.
With my talk I took people on a journey through my past. My childhood and the young-adult version of myself.
What I mainly found intertwined with the theme acceptance were the subthemes: your own critic and comparing yourself to others as obstacels to not come to terms with self-acceptance.
Today I will blog about comparing yourself to others.

We start comparing ourselves to others at a very young age. When you start your schoolcareer, you are at one point faced with being measured in results. Some countries rate their students in percentages from 0 - 100%.
Some grade from 1-10, and there's many more variation to let the child know how it's doing it's work. The young child will compare it's own results to other's.
There is also social confrontation.
You will learn how you are doing in a group. You will find out whether you are populair or not by the amount of invites you get for playdates or birthday parties.

Nowadays Social Media offers us all these options to share our story and voice.
But guess what? It's a shark's tank for comparison and critics.
You may think- 'how come this person has: all these followers, friends, has been on a worldtravel, graduated with a perfect grade, married the love of their lives, make a lot of money, cook beautiful food.. darn that is just not me. I'm never going to be as good. Or as loved.'Comparison can provoke some very nasty thoughts. It can makes us wanna give up because we're not quite there where we want to be.
It can create a downwards spiral in negativity and feeling stuck. We forget to be grateful for all the great stuff that actually is in our life.

A study has shown that people who spend longer than 2 hours on Social Media daily can end up feeling more alone, isolated, and even depressed because we compare!


The other day I had a long and hard talk with a friend about it. I found that she was comparing herself to her other friends. I told her; 'When you do this, you actually say: I'm not worth it. You are not kind to yourself because you keep telling yourself things are wrong with you and your life.'
Of course it is okay to also want what others have for yourself, but go about it in a different way. Instead of comparing yourself, let people inspire you.
I am very pleased to learn that I picked up a thing or two from a very dear friend who is real go-getter.
I started to ask myself how to make the changes I want for my life. I have started to take control over my daily diet first. Instead of loading up on take aways, I started to do food planning for every day and made delicious and healthy meals. When I settled that I took on time to study. And everybody knows by now I don't make Friday night plans before 20.00, because my Zumba class is at 18.00.
I have succesfully been building new habits and I getting a bigger sense of pride for my efforts and because of my new life style I gain so much more energy.

So, be inspired and stop comparing!
If you have any thoughts or tips you want to share, please leave them in the comments below.



6 comments:

  1. I'm so happy to see that the new habits are giving you so much energy! Your friend is wise. I try to follow that advice and let people inspire me, but sometimes it's just too hard. You know when I blogger with awful grammar gets more followers than you? Yeah, that still hurts. But in a lot of cases I try to ignore other blogger's numbers. It's a lot easier when you ignore Twitter. I still spend a lot of time on that app, but only to send DMs, hahaha.

    x Envy
    Lost in Translation

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    1. Your english is so fab!
      I still spot some mistakes in mine at times. Never forget your uniqueness babe!

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  2. I try not to compare myself but I think sometimes it just happens! It’s good you have found new ways to avoid it! I find setting my own goals and not getting them from anyone else helps

    Ellyn x | Life Of A Beauty Nerd

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    1. I agree Rebecca. I do use others to be inspired but I wouldn't have others set goals for me :) Thank you for stopping by.

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  3. You pointed out a lot of good points when it comes to comparing ourselves and why we shouldn't. For me, I can't help but compare myself to others, especially in the blogging world. I'll see other people be more successful in numbers, career, or personal life things, and I'll compare myself as see myself in a negative life. I may not have the best tips when it comes to it, because I still struggle with this, but when I see myself comparing myself to others, I try to talk myself out of being negative. I try to use that as something to give me energy or need to reach those goals. If others can do it, so can I. Thank you so much for sharing this!

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    1. Thank YOU for stopping by. I think it's all about realizing that your own blog, voice and style are unique. There's nobody that will write the way that you do. I do understand the struggle. I learned early not to compare myself. My mother always tried to put my sister forward as an example of how I should be, but she's so different to me. I love her, but she's not me and I'm not her. we are two different people for a reason. Keep at it Bianca and I am sure people will express their love for your writing just as much.

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