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How to stop comparing yourself to others
And when you do, how to not feel so bad about it
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt
When’s the last time you compared yourself to someone else? If you’re like many of us (i.e., human), it was probably not long ago.
The fact is, we compare. Whether we compare our homes, incomes, intelligences, vacation destinations, Tinder profiles, or a limitless number of other things, we all do it.
And when we do it, we feel like shit.
Study after study has shown that just scrolling through social media makes us feel unhappy or depressed, and it is largely because of the comparisons we make between ourselves and others (see here; here; here; here; and here).
So, you can start by limiting your time on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn (and I’d highly recommend this!), but that doesn’t solve the problem, does it? Because, although this might make you happier, it won’t help you deal with the moments when you do make comparisons.
And let’s face it, social media doesn’t have a monopoly on social comparisons. We’ve been doing this for as long as there have been humans, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
