Why Do People Compare Themselves to Others?
What is self-comparison?
Self comparison is the act of contrasting one’s own life with the lives of other people as they are publicly represented.
Self-comparison is a normal process. It can encourage, motivate and show the art of the possible. Many of us have compared ourselves to at least one person at some point in time. However, if left unchecked self-comparison can become detrimental and lead to feelings of inferiority, self-doubt, and anxiety.
This blog will set out some practical tips on how you can use self-comparison in a positive way.
Social Comparison Theory
Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory 1954 –This theory focuses on a belief that individuals want to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory hypothesizes that people have greater tendency to compare themselves to someone who is quite similar. He argues that we are driven to assess our abilities and opinions to determine whether we are good enough and set a level of aspiration or benchmark. Source: Festinger's Social Comparison Theory 1954
There are two common distinctions between the types of self-comparison.
Upward social comparison
This is when we compare ourselves to others who we perceive to be better than us. This can then motivate us to improve our current skills set to achieve the same results as the comparable person.
Downward social comparison
This is when we compare ourselves to others who we perceive to be in a worse position than us. These comparisons are often centred around us feeling better about ourselves and current success. Source: positivepsychology.com/social-comparison
Benefits of self comparison
Comparing ourselves to a peer who has achieved a goal that we would also like to achieve helps show the art of the possible. Knowing that someone else has been able to achieve this objective can help motivate you to also achieve your goals too. Here are a few ways that you can benefit from self-comparison:
1. It can help benchmark you against your peers and motivate you to achieve a new goal E.g. If you compare yourself to family members who are healthy eaters it might drive you to also pick up good habits and eat healthy.
2. If you are comparing yourself to someone in a similar situation as yourself who you have access to speak to even better! Understanding circumstances and context can help create a fuller picture, as opposed to just viewing the highlights of someone’s life from social media (note this rarely shows you the full picture of someone’s life).
3. Having the opportunity to speak to someone who has achieved the goal and review any lessons learned can be invaluable to you achieving the same thing, avoiding pitfalls and possibly get you to your goal faster in some circumstances.
4. It can motivate you to achieve beyond what you thought was possible.
5. It may drive you to become more ambitious and set more challenging targets for growth.
Downside of self-comparison
With an abundance of social media on most people’s smartphones it’s possible for continuous self-comparison to occur 24/7. What are some of the downsides of this?
1. When we compare our own life with the highlights of someone else’s from social media, we fall into the trap of not comparing like for like. Social media rarely shows the complete picture and will often only show the best snippets of someone’s life and intentionally leave out some of the more challenging circumstance
2. It can cause stress and anxiety when comparing with other people. Feeling like you have to achieve what someone else has achieved can create unnecessary pressure on yourself.
3. Feeling that you are lacking something that other people have, can reduce your own sense of happiness and abundance which can also lead to low self-esteem & low confidence.
4. You can easily start to spend more time admiring someone else’s, life which can take away from focusing on your own goals and targets
5. Constant self-comparison and the fear of missing out can lead to depression.
How to readdress the balance?
1. Become more intentional when using social media
To avoid spending several hours a day scrolling & comparing yourself to others via social media try to become more intentional with how you use it. E.g. set aside a specific time boxed slot in the day when you will use it and don’t allow yourself to exceed the time limit. Remind yourself prior to using social media that this is only showing the highlights and doesn’t form as a basis to fully compare yourself to others. Source: whatis.techtarget.com
Scrolling through social media pages can produce a dopamine like response in the brain which can become addictive. Try planning out before use what is your intention for using it that day e.g. if it’s to catch up with a friend, release a post try and stick to this. If you still find social media to be a problem, you can always remove the apps off your phone and only use them on your laptop at the designated time slots to introduce greater control.
2. Goal setting
Set your own goals for what it is that you want to achieve and review on a regular basis. Having your goals set will remind you of what it is that you want to achieve for YOU, rather than being influenced by other people’s objectives.
3. Vision Board
Linked into goal setting, create a visual representation of some of the things you want to achieve and keep it in a place where you will be able to view it daily. This will serve as another visual reminded of what is important to you.
4. Practising Gratitude
It can become very easy to want more and more of what we “perceive” others already have. Taking a step back and start practising gratitude for all of the things that you already have. This can help readdress the balance. It will support the promotion of an abundant mindset.
5. Celebrate you!
Take some time to celebrate your uniqueness! We are all blessed with different skills, features, and talents for a reason. No one is the same as you, therefore don’t lose sight of the fact that you will always bring your own unique flair to things.
By all means use self-comparison to motivate and encourage you, but don’t lose focus on your own goals and unique talents in the process. Own who you are!
Please refer to the Furlearn website for more self development blogs
