It is a weird thing to do if you compare yourself to other people purely because we are all on different paths but with that said it is a common process that we all cant help ourselves to do.
No normal person compares themselves to the Queen of England or the President of the United States because we share no common ground with them but unfortunately the closer we are in age, status, background and area code to someone else we see them as a milestone we must measure up to and we do that without the knowledge of how they even go there.
Lets say you want to loose weight and you are following the photos posted by your neighbours Sally and John down the road as they seem to be dropping the pounds with ease. They say it is just a change in lifestyle and eating the veg from their new deep root planters that they bought during lockdown. Maybe this is true or maybe its the worry and strain of their relationship coming to an end which was highlighted to them during lockdown that has them shrinking in size. Sally might be popping the diet pills but is embarrassed to say that or even is so insecure that she doesn't want to share this secret and see others loose weight too maybe more weight than she does. John might be having them same pills crushed up and hidden in his stew totally unaware that it is happening.
You might be looking at your old school friend who appears to have experienced an overnight success in the industry of online selling but what are you basing that success on - the photo visual of a lifestyle that only money can buy because debit can show the same visual too? Maybe they truly are a huge success but what appears to be an overnight reward to you is more likely to be years of trying and failing, true grit and passion to keep going, its been a struggle that now won they really do deserve what they have achieved. No footballer kicked a ball once and became the best player in the world. No actress stood in front of a camera for the first time ever and won an Oscar. No child looked at a pop up book and then grabbed a pen to write a hit TV show script.
Your comparison that you make should only be with yourself by asking "I am better today than I was yesterday?" that's it. If you answer no, well then its easy to fix because you know the effort or lack of effort that you put into yesterday. You know what worked and what did not. You know what felt good and what made you feel bad. You might not ever be a famous footballer or playwriter but did you love having a kick about
yesterday? Did you love sitting down with your friends last night over zoom to writing up and performing a mock script? Do you have to be better than everyone else in the room, the country or the world? If you feel like you do then please ask yourself why - "why do I feel like I have to be better than EVERYONE ELSE?" then ask yourself a second question "Why is that so important to me?" The answers are something that you can work on to personally develop yourself.
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