How often do you experience this happening to you?
A friend of yours got into this really good university.
Your cousin landed a high paying job in an MNC.
That colleague of yours got an opportunity to go abroad on a project.
Your neighbor’s daughter is marring a rich man.
Your thoughts after hearing one of the above lines would depend on your relationship with that person. You may or may not be happy for them but what you cannot stop doing is compare ourselves with them.
It is in our nature to compare ourselves with others.
Although sometimes comparing can bring us some satisfaction but a lot of times it ends up demotivating us.
Have you ever wondered –
Why do we compare ourselves with others? especially when our inner self knows that we are better than them. Why do we calculate our sense of worth by comparing ourselves to others? When we know that we really don’t need to do that.
We become so mindful of others that our achievements hardly matter.
There’s a saying,
“That the grass is greener on the other side.”
There’s another saying,
“That the grass is greener wherever you water it.”
Now let me ask you which of these two makes more sense to you?
The former is one assuming that everybody else’s life is better than theirs and the latter is acknowledging that life will be better when you work on it.
It is very easier for us to just assume that the others have it easy. It may or may not be true but thinking about others will make you feel more insecure about yourself. What’s worse is, comparing yourself with others is not at all going to help.
Think back and think hard –
Close your eyes, now think where you were – a year back, two years back and why not think about how you were 5 years back versus how you are at present.
Now thinks of all the changes and progress that you have made in your life since then. You grew so much. You achieved a lot and gained so many new skills and maybe some hobbies too.
Maybe some of you went from being a novice into a managerial position.
Some of you went from a temporary trainee to a more permanent worker.
While some of you took the next step in your relationship with your partner.
If I look back 5 years then I would say I went from having no experience at all to having some experience. Sure, my peers might be ahead of me in a lot of aspects but I’m growing and progressing at my own pace. Then again, if I keep dwelling on it then I couldn’t focus on gaining my own experience.
A Custom-made graph anyone?
Think of it like this. Imagine your life can be explained through a graph. It includes all the achievements and success that you had, be it professional or personal ones. Focus on whether your graph is rising or decreasing.
If it is rising, then kudos you are doing well compared to last year. If it is not then you get to acknowledge that you need to make some changes in your life if you want to make progress.
Overall, the point here is to focus on your graph and your graph only. Now that’s where the magic lies, when you focus on your graph then you won’t have the time to look into others.
If you do find yourself meddling into other peoples graph then simply look at your graph from a wide-angle and you will be amazed at how far you came.
Your graph is custom made just for you with no interference from others. You can design it however you want and the best part is, its growth is completely in your hands.
So why focus on other’s graph when there’s a tailor made one waiting for you?
