How To Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

14:38

How To Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

by Dr Thomas Smithyman

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

In this video, Dr. Thomas Smithyman explores three common types of comparison and explains why even comparing yourself to your past self can sometimes backfire. You’ll learn a healthier way to step out of the comparison trap, see your life as your own individual journey, and redirect your attention toward what actually matters to you. DISCLAIMER This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for clinical care. Please consult a health care provider for guidance specific to your case.

Inner Critic Reframing Practice Self Coaching Practice Self Improvement Personal Journey Psychology Social Media Mental Health Support

Meet your Teacher

Dr Thomas Smithyman

New York, NY, USA

Meet your Teacher

Dr Thomas Smithyman

New York, NY, USA

Transcript

So I was talking to someone the other day who saw a photo of themselves in their 20s. And they said, Oh my god, I cannot believe how good looking I used to be. How come I didn't see it at the time? How come I didn't think I was good enough? How come I felt like I wasn't attractive enough? We talked about it a little bit. I'm like, Well, It's because. . . You're doing a certain type of comparison that makes you feel bad. But you're, Even now in the present, Doing a different type of comparison that's making you feel bad now. So in this video, I want to get into my take on how to stop comparing ourselves. I see it causing a lot of personal pain, A lot of social pain. I'm going to get into why the most common answer you come across for this is actually not super helpful. And then what I prefer to do instead. There's three types of comparison style. The first type is the one we all know about. It's what we call upward comparisons in psychology. It's where, From where we are, We compare ourselves to someone who we see as being better than us. On some particular trait. More muscular than me, Smarter than me. Somebody has more money than me. We do this all the time. Psychologically, The reason we have a part of the brain that does this is that It's designed to have us kind of like look around and check in and see where we fall. With the idea of it's gonna help maybe give us some motivation to work harder towards our goals, Or it might even give us ideas on how best to get there. Upper comparisons are happening all the time in the present, And we know this because of social media. So we're getting a constant, Constant stream of other people who are better than us on a whole range of traits. On top of that. . . Businesses and advertising. They thrive on this. What they are trying to do, Essentially all the time, Is they are trying to create an upward comparison. So it creates a lot of discomfort and then they sell us a way to close that gap. And that triggers us to actually feel bad about ourselves. It triggers shame, It triggers collapse. Which is kind of the opposite of motivation because if we feel bad enough. . . It actually robs us of energy and it makes us do less. The other downside to this is it also seems to trigger. Jealousy and it triggers resentment. Which are pretty negative. So with upward comparisons, We are tending to compare ourselves on some particular trait. But of course, We are cherry picking that one trait. That we're not as good at and we're doing it with people who have a whole range of traits. We tend not to compare on the entire person, Right? We just pick the one thing they're good at. And oftentimes, We compare to somebody else. We don't choose that trait. We pick something else they're good at. So rather than picking how smart they are, For this other person, We compare to how athletic they are. When I was growing up, I had a friend who suffered a lot from these upward comparisons. He was very aware of not being as good as other people, Really in a whole range of things. But he was very focused on kind of not being cool enough and not being good looking enough. And what he learned to do over time. Is he learned to Look for people that were worse than him at those traits. This made him feel a little bit better. Gave him a little bit of boost to self-esteem, But it also made him kind of negative and judgmental to be around. And this is the second type. Of comparison. It's a downward comparison. We're here and we're looking down on people that are worse than us. On some particular trade. That does give us what I would call a cheap self-esteem boost. We feel a little better because we're like, Hey, I'm better than that person. And you'll see this if you look for it on like TikTok a lot, Right? Or the comments of YouTube videos. You can see people like tearing each other down. And they're getting a cheap self-esteem boost. It breeds like a negativity. There's a certain judgmental feel that gives you. And people can sense that. So it tends to be a problem socially. The other thing it does is, Whatever we do to others, We instinctively sense they're doing to us. So if we walk around looking for people's flaws and judging them, Than implicitly we feel. Everybody else's eyes on us. Seeing our flaws and judging us. So even though we get this little bit of shallow cheap self-esteem boost, We have an underlying feeling of still not being good enough. It doesn't really work. So you've heard about the upward comparison, And you've heard about the downward comparison. What's third? I'm gonna ask you. Now talk about what you've likely heard as the solution. Don't compare yourself to other people, Just compare yourself to yourself. Just look at where you were before and look at where you are now. And that is great as long as you are continuously progressing. What happens when you don't progress? Right? Like. . . If you were getting athletically better and better, What happens when you have an injury? If you're in a nice relationship, What happens when you have a breakup? What happens when you get to my age and you're no longer 20 anymore? Time does go on, Right? We cannot ever expect to just continuously get better. So what happens at that point? Is that it triggers us to have an upward comparison of ourselves. Right? Not helpful. I've had people come into my office. And really be stuck. On experiences from the past. Something's gone wrong. They've lost that relationship, They've become more anxious, They've become more depressed, Things didn't go the way they wanted to. And they are comparing themselves to the past. But in a negative way. It's really unhelpful to get stuck there. Or people will have this idea of, I thought by now I'd be at this point. I really saw myself as having this. An upward comparison to a fantasy of what they thought their life would be. That's not helpful. And this is why this is in my comparison trap model. Because. . . You're still on a hierarchy, You're still doing a comparison, And you still have negative consequences. So that's why I refer to this third one. A self-comparison. It's still comparison. It's still in a hierarchy. It can be. Unhelpful. And honestly, For all of these, Right, There is some. . . Peace. Of benefit to it. There's something positive within each of these, Right? With upward comparison, There's a desire for motivation. And to learn how to change and improve. And for self-comparison, There's this idea to look for progression and move forward. But with all comparison there's a risk of an upward comparison and feeling bad. If the answer to not comparing ourselves is not to just focus on ourselves. Then what are we supposed to do? I had somebody in my office recently who I've known for a while and was in a long-term relationship where over time they were really growing apart as people. And had different values, So it was time to break up. Then they came back to my office maybe a month later. Kind of upset because their ex was now in a new relationship and they could see on social media that they were really, Really happy. So this person felt really bad about that and was wondering, Why am I, Why am I failing here? And what I said is you're not failing, Right? This is not a place of comparison. You broke up? You were starting in very different places. Your ex? Decided to head quickly off in that direction of finding a new relationship. I'm going to argue partly as a way of suppressing the pain of the breakup. You, Though, Intentionally said, I'm not going to jump into a relationship. I'm going to focus on my career. And reinvesting back into my social relationships. And then once I've done some healing, I'll be ready for a new relationship. So you're not falling behind. There isn't a comparison here. You are running two different races. You're on two different journeys. So within this story, I think, Is the model for how we stop comparing ourselves. To use a new metaphor, When we compare ourselves. We are acting like we are in a 100 meter sprint with somebody. We're acting like we're in a race and there's other competitors. We are on a straight and narrow path and we are racing to the finish line that we've all agreed upon. The truth is, If we pull back. . . We're not in a race, We're not in a sprint. We are on a lifelong journey. Each of us as humans. We are starting off from where we start off from. We have a whole range of different traits and attributes. We go through different experiences throughout our lifespan. We are heading off in our own personal direction. And that direction's not straight. It goes straight for a bit and then it curves left and then it curves right. We face things we didn't know we'd face. We have interest nowadays we won't have in 10 years. We will see ourselves many, Many years in the future. We can look back and say, I didn't know I'd end up here. As humans, This is how we are. We're not actually racing. If we pull back. Each one of us is on our own separate and different journey because of these factors. And when we're comparing ourselves, We are looking at other people that are in the midst of their own journey, Comparing to us in the midst of our journey. We may occasionally overlap. We are running very individual races. And part of this is a way of saying we don't know what's happening in people's lives. I know this because of my job, That there is a lot of complications that go on in pretty much everyone's lives. When you see someone walking down the street or in line at the grocery store or at the gym, You were just seeing one piece of them. You don't know what else is going on for them. I do. I do. You can pick. Any trait that you do an upward comparison on. And I can tell you I have either known personally or in my job someone who scores very highly on that trait, Who is suffering. Because of something else, Or even because that trait's more complicated than you realize. We don't know what's going on in people's lives. We don't know their journey. We don't know where they're coming from. We don't know where they're going. It's really hard to compare our experience to someone else's because they have a very different path to us. I think about like, If I go to the gym, If I see somebody who is really muscular, If I were to compare myself to that guy on muscularity, Right, Do an upwards comparison, I'm doing pretty bad. In reality, We're on very different paths. Like I am in the gym because my focus is not on the gym. Muscular growth. My focus is on physical health, Mental health. I go there regularly for that reason. I'm coming from a path of lifelong caring about that kind of stuff. I'll care about the rest of my life. That guy in the gym, I don't know his background. Like where did he start out from? Was he ever my size? Was he always a big guy? Was he overweight once? How much does he work on this? How many days is he in there? And where is he headed, Right? Is he trying to be a pro bodybuilder? Or is that some sport he's working out for? What drives him? Has he had an injury? Has he had those really low periods where he's really focused on it and he's lost a lot of the gains because he's suffered? Does he struggle with his diet? What's his relationship like? What are his parents like? I don't know any of that stuff. All I know is that I'm on my own path, This guy is on his own path, And that one day in that one gym. . . Our paths have crossed. That's all I know. I can't compare to him. I don't know where he is in his journey. If I decided to grow muscle, I'd be starting out at like month one. No use comparing to somebody who's 10 years in, Right? We are made with a part of our brain that does comparisons. When we see these people who trigger some kind of upward comparison for us, What do we do with this? What I argue for. Comes from evolution, Right? You can either. . . Be really strong. Stand alone and defeat all your enemies. Or you can form a group. And a team. And have strength in numbers. And I'm gonna argue that. . . Throughout pretty much all of psychology. What we want to do is we want to become really good teammates. We want to become really good allies. When you notice yourself getting triggered for that comparison, Pull back. Recognize it. And notice, Am I doing an upward comparison, A downward comparison, Or a self-comparison? And then remind yourself. I don't want to be in a hierarchy. Because we're not in a sprint. Instead, We are each on our own paths. At our own pace. Going from where we started to where we're going to end up. And that all of us have ups and downs, All of us have easy times, All of us have hard times. And so when we look at that person that. . . Triggered the comparison. I wanna think. How could I be a good ally to this person? How could I be a good teammate to this person? Even if it's only internally. And for me, I think the way to do that. . . Is to know that they are somewhere along their journey to where they're going. It's not where I'm going. And I want to hope for the best for them. But I don't want to spend a ton of time processing other people. So I'll turn my attention back to myself, And remember, I'm on my own lifelong journey that has its ups and has its downs. I want to also wish myself well. On that path. And then, Taking my very limited amount of psychological energy, I want to stop processing myself. I want to take my attention. And focus on the task at hand. Okay, Hope that helps.