Compare and Despair

After the last post about ‘starting’ my mate PH asked - what holds us back from starting something new. It’s a great question/prompt so I’m gonna run with it.

The big question is: why do we hold ourselves back from even attempting the things we truly want to do in life? Write a book, act in a play, learn a musical instrument, go back to school, start a business, etc. My assumption and personal experience is that the root cause is fear. That can represent itself in many ways but a few that are top of mind:

• Analysis Paralysis = fear of making the ‘wrong’ decision
• Perfectionism = fear of rejection or making mistakes
• Compare and Despair = fear that others have or will do it better than you

For the purposes of this post, I’m focused on ‘Compare and Despair’: the concept of believing other people are more successful than us, comparing ourselves to them, and then feeling bad about ourselves and our achievements.

“People constantly evaluate themselves, and others, in domains like attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, and success. According to some studies, as much as 10 percent of our thoughts involve comparisons of some kind.”

In 1954 Social Comparison Theory was developed on the idea that individuals determine their own social and personal worth based on how they stack up against others.

The nature of the brain to compare and benchmark isn’t a problem in itself - it’s what we do with the information that can cause us to stall out. I for one have caught myself several times in life thinking - oh I won’t go for that job because I’ve seen people on LinkedIn that are a better fit. It’s also easy to dismiss our own talents because we perceive someone as being better at the same skill. It’s most likely that there is someone out there better than you or me at any given skill, but that does not mean there isn’t immense value in what you offer and the unique way in which you deliver that particular skill. It also doesn’t mean you don’t have the opportunity to surpass that other person if you work at it.

I’m not going to get into the whole social media aspect of this issue but as you can imagine social media exacerbates this problem by constantly surfacing curated photos of people’s ‘best lives’ available for comparison 24/7.

If, like me, you’ve ever experienced this (which is likely, due to the point above ??) what can be done? Like any potential self-sabotaging issue there is always another way to look at things with the right mindset. Comparison is normal, it is how the mindworx, it’s the negative self-assessment that causes issues.

Psychology Today published a nice list of antidotes. For me simply being aware of this comparison trap and recognizing the thoughts that follow can help reset how I’m looking at things. Comparison can be a source of positive motivation if your mindset is to look for inspiration and ways to improve vs focusing on what you may be lacking (true or not…)

This is how your mind works - always comparing and looking for improvements, use it to your advantage.