Can Comparing Yourself to Others Be Good For You?
Welcome to FAB Friday in September! As you may know I had surgery to replace a disc in my neck last week! I’m very happy to report that the surgery went very well – fixed the nerve pain that was running down my arm for the last year and I’m healing just fine!
After a lovely summer celebrating all my favorite things – I feel like its time to get back to an organized series of FAB Friday messages. In listening to the amazing memorials pouring in over the loss of Queen Elizabeth yesterday, I was reminded of how important what people think of us can be to our legacy. When to pay attention to it and when to let it go. So here is the first in the series of What People Think Of You! Enjoy!
Can Comparing Yourself To Others Be Good For You?
The answer to this is a resounding “Yes” if you do this in the right way.
What most people tend to do is compare themselves to others as some form of validation for themselves or because of envy or some other negative emotion.
The secret to comparing yourself to others for your benefit is to do it on the premise that you want to improve yourself. You want to achieve a specific goal and another person has already achieved this goal so you can learn from them and then use similar strategies in your own life. (Role Models)
You must have the right Intent
Having the right intent for comparing yourself to another person is critical. What we do not recommend you do is compare yourself to someone else that you know is not as good as you in a specific area so that you can give your ego a boost. Avoid this kind of “self validation”.
Think about why you want to make the comparison.
Let’s say that you want to be a successful business owner and there is an entrepreneur in your network who always seems to make the right decisions and has the level of confidence that you want to achieve.
You want to find out how they got to their position and how they maintain their confidence. This is specific intent and you are in the right frame of mind to make the comparison. You are not jealous that this person has accomplished more than you. It is all about learning from the person so that you can improve your life.
Consume other relevant information
This entrepreneur is not the only success story out there. Many have written books and some have their own blog. These days it is easier than it ever has been before to get the information that you need about how people have accomplished their achievements.
Once you have decided that you want to be a top notch business owner consume everything that you can about the subject and keep looking for new material. Never stop learning. Modeling the business owner you know is a good step forward but you can always do more.
If you are not a fan of reading then go to YouTube and find relevant videos there. You will be sure to find what you are looking for. Also look for forums on your subject and join them and participate. Ask questions and most people will be happy to help.
Be careful of your Self View
You have a view about yourself that you formed over many years. This self view tells you that you things like you are smart, good looking, talented and so on. We all need this self view because it defines how you see the world around you and helps you to figure everything out.
The problem is that if you believe something in your self view and something challenges this then there is conflict. So if you believe that you know a lot about business and someone tells you that you need to learn more about business then this is difficult to tak
Remember that you can’t compare your starting point to someone else’s success point – it may have taken them 10 years to become that overnight success!
ACTION:
Who do you compare yourself to and WHY?
Ask yourself if this comparison is helpful to you as a person and/or to building your business?
As a business coach for over 6 years, I have talked with 100’s of business owners in all stages of business – I can help provide comparisons of what has worked and not worked for others.