How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others and Live Happily

Just imagine: you sit down at the table, your favorite food on your plate – perhaps a fragrant bolognese pasta, a juicy steak, or a piece of chocolate cake. You savor every bite and get up from the table in a good mood, without a sense of guilt or thoughts about how many calories it all contained and what to do about it.

Let's talk about why we are generally prone to comparing ourselves with others, when comparison can be useful, and when it turns into an emotional trap. We'll also cover how to stop devaluing your life, learn to notice your own successes, and finally start living more easily and joyfully.

Why Do We Compare Ourselves at All?

Comparing ourselves isn't a harmful habit that absolutely needs to be eradicated. In ancient times, comparing oneself to others helped us survive, and now it helps us learn. By observing those who are doing better than others, we understand what we can improve in ourselves and how to incorporate external knowledge into our experience.

The problem is that the modern world has distorted this mechanism beyond recognition. What could be a catalyst for our development has turned into a growth blocker. We used to compare ourselves to village neighbors, and now – to millions of people on the internet, most of whom only present their "show-off" facade, driving us into an emotional pit called "I'm worse than everyone."

When to Use Comparison to Your Advantage

Comparison is like medicine: useful in small doses, but poison in overdose. The main thing is to learn to manage it so that it works to your benefit. Here's why comparison can be helpful:

1. Motivation

When we meet someone who has achieved what we only dream of, it ignites an inner fire, reminding us that anything is possible. Maybe running a marathon, maybe finding love after 40, or maybe earning enough for an apartment in a year. Instead of falling into despair, you can tell yourself: "If she did it, then I can too."

2. Inner Compass

Comparison helps you understand what truly matters to you. Sometimes, to see your true goal, you need to look at other people. You might think you dream of an apartment in the capital, but after visiting friends in their country house, you suddenly realize you also want to drink morning coffee on the terrace while birds sing, surrounded by your cultivated peonies.

3. Learning

Sometimes someone else's path is a way to save your own resources. It's enough to look at the "route" someone has already successfully completed to understand what mistakes can be avoided on your own path.

When Comparison Harms

As you can see, comparison can be useful, but this tool easily turns toxic if we start measuring our worth by external standards. Let's explore this across the most popular areas of life.

1. Appearance and Weight

The Danger:

You see "ideal" photos with glowing skin, tiny waists, and dazzling smiles. Your brain immediately compares this to your morning reflection in the mirror. And, of course, you lose, because this is an unfair game.

How to Stop Comparing:

• Unfollow, at least temporarily, accounts that make you feel "I'm worse."
• Add people with diverse body types to your feed who embrace unfiltered beauty.
• Focus on what your body can do, not just how it looks.

How to Benefit:

Think about how you could take care of yourself to feel and look better. Review your eating habits (in this article, I explained the healthy plate principle in detail – implement it and get results), sleep patterns, and rest routines.

Set a harmonious connection with your body and its cycle – download the assistant bot that will help you create a personalized menu based on your phases and needs at different stages of your life.

2. Career and Money

The Danger:

Social media feeds create the illusion that “everything comes easy to everyone”: everyone builds a successful career, launches thriving businesses, and earns millions. We immediately forget that each of us has our own starting point, our own resources, and our own priorities.

How to Stop Comparing:

• Make a list of your professional successes from the past year. Even if they're not impressive results, it's still your growth.
• Remember that everyone has a different path. For some, the climb looks like a straight staircase, while for others, it's zigzagging, and that's perfectly normal.
• Compare yourself to your past self, not to someone else's biography.

How to Benefit:

Focus not on other people's successes, but on their approach, methods, and ways of doing things. Maybe you're much closer to your goal than you think; you just need a missing piece – and that's precisely the detail you can glean from others' success stories and adopt for yourself.

3. Personal Life and Family

The Danger:

For some, it's romance, bouquets of 101 roses, diamonds, and morning coffee in bed. For you, it's silence in messengers or arguments over who takes out the trash. "Am I really not worthy of better?!" Of course, you are. What you see in others is just the glossy storefront of a "relationship" project. Don't idealize it.

How to Stop Comparing:

• Don't forget that an "ideal couple" might be fighting behind the scenes every day.
• Determine what's truly important for you in a relationship, and build it according to your rules.
• Notice small warm moments: a shared dinner, laughing at a silly movie, flirting with a cute stranger if you're currently single. Things aren't that bad after all, believe me.

How to Benefit:

Notice what you would like to see more often in your relationships. Sometimes ideas you pick up from others can be an excellent solution to bring novelty and freshness into your personal life.

4. Social Life

The Danger:

Festivals, trips, tastings, performances – it's no wonder that against such a background, your life might seem like an unbearably boring routine, where the main entertainments are trips to mom's country house and watching Sunday series.

How to Stop Comparing:

• Determine what genuinely interests you. An active life isn't for everyone. Be honest with yourself – perhaps cozy tea parties with your mom's cream cake could bring you a warm feeling of happiness.
• Don't forget that broadcasting social activity is a task for public figures, and obligations don't always equate to enjoyment.

How to Benefit:

Try new activities. You don't have to fly to the other side of the world immediately or attend an expensive conference. An amateur theater group in your city, a book club, volunteering at an animal shelter – and suddenly you'll have dozens of new contacts and a wealth of new experiences.

How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others: 10 Practical Steps

1. Track the Moment of Comparison

Notice when the thought "I'm worse" pops into your head. Don't let it develop further by coming up with new arguments about why and in what ways you are worse.

Stop, pause, breathe deeply, and ask yourself: “What exactly bothered me right now?” Awareness is the first step to releasing excessive emotions and seeking rational explanations. Practice this exercise as often as possible when comparing, and you'll see that you're not comparing the whole person or their entire life, but just one facet of it, which you are perfectly capable of improving in your own life.

2. Turn Envy into a Hint

Comparison and envy are indicators of what truly matters to you. Ask yourself these two questions: “Do I really want this?” and “Am I ready to invest the time and effort to get it?” Your answer might not always be positive, but it will help you put aside unnecessary worries.

3. Keep a Gratitude Journal

Get a nice notebook and every evening, write down three things you are grateful for today. Don't look for significant reasons – allow yourself to notice small joys and derive pleasure from them.

Over time, you'll start to notice more and more reasons for gratitude.

Here is my detailed article about the benefits of a gratitude journal and recommendations on how to keep it for maximum benefit.

4. Simultaneously Keep a Success Journal

Note every small victory: finishing a complex project, standing your ground, going for a workout even when you didn't want to. After a couple of months, you'll have a whole collection of evidence that you're moving forward, and this will become your personal shield against devaluation.

5. Filter Your Information Flow

Unfollow anyone who makes you feel like you're constantly "not good enough." Surround yourself with those who inspire, not oppress you – including in your information bubble. We can't always control what happens around us, but we can regulate who speaks loudest in that flow.

6. Remember You Don't See the Whole Picture

Other people's lives on social media are like an exciting trailer, not the full movie. No one shows their failures, sleepless nights, or family conflicts. Remind yourself of this every time you see someone else's "ideal" life.

7. Respect Your Pace

Life isn't a race; it's more like a marathon without a finish line. Some reach their goals at 25, others at 55, and both options are normal. Stop comparing yourself to those who have already advanced significantly. You are on your way to your goal, and that's the most important thing.

8. Compare Yourself Only to Yourself

Look at your progress over the past months and years. Perhaps you've become more confident, calmer, learned to set boundaries or say "no." These are huge achievements that are hard to notice if you only focus on others' successes.

9. Replace "Better/Worse" with "Different"

Turn off black-and-white thinking. Try to stop evaluating everything in terms of winners and losers. Some people have a different path, a different set of values, a different starting position. "Different" isn't worse; it's simply another scenario, no less fascinating or successful.

10. Enrich Your Life

The more joyful activities, people, and events you have in your life, the less time and desire you'll have to scrutinize others. Find your dream pursuit, try new professions, discover new hobbies, and make new acquaintances.

And your life will be able to inspire and motivate someone else, just as others' stories inspire you now.

Be yourself, and remember, your strength lies in your unique path.