Self-Comparison: A Self-Destructive Habit

Social media. You might love it, you might hate it, you might avoid it (and maybe some days you do all three). Regardless of how you feel about it though, you can’t deny that it’s here to stay.

And you probably know that Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and the like—any platform that tries to distill life down to the verbal and pictorial version of shiny soundbites and measures success in number of followers—pull for something that might not feel good to you, but you can’t help doing it anyway.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the urge to compare ourselves to others.

Don’t worry—this post isn’t going to be a harangue against social media. I’m on Facebook and Twitter, after all, and I can see the merit of these platforms. That’s not what this article is about. Rather, it’s about something far more insidious and difficult to identify at times, and it’s not caused by social media, after all, though collecting “likes” might exacerbate it.

I’m talking about how often we compare ourselves to others and how much that habit can hurt us.

The Comparison Trap Starts Early and Goes on Automatic Pilot

Indeed, there’s an ancient Eastern bit of wisdom that says that all unhappiness in life arises from comparing oneself to others.

Self-comparison is not an exclusively modern proclivity. Long before social media stormed the interpersonal scene and pulled up a permanent chair, comparing ourselves to others may have felt so natural to you that you may not have even realized you were doing it (I know that was the case for me). And we’re likely taught as children that we should compare—we should know where our performance falls relative to the rest of the class; we should know who ran the fastest mile and how close we are to beating it; we’ve probably all heard some version of: “Why can’t you be more like him/her?”

Sometimes a little bit of “yardsticking” can be a good thing, as when you feel inspired enough by someone else’s achievements or mindset or hobbies that you want to attempt your own, in your own way. So that needs no addressing. But the kind of habitual self-comparison that serves as a self-destructive force is the kind we could all do without.

Whether you’re looking around and berating yourself for not measuring up to others (in terms of looks or possessions or achievements or even more abstract things like happiness or contentment), or whether you’re feeling superior to others because you think they have less or because you think they are less, the me-juxtaposed-with-them comparing mindset is a trap because it predicates your own inner self-worth (bad or good) on someone else’s exterior life.

In other words, the habit of self-comparing prevents you from nurturing your own identity because it requires you to gauge someone else’s identity first.

In addition, you can’t really know what someone else’s life journey is like and how they are feeling about themselves. So as you compare how you feel to how they seem, you’re treating yourself unfairly. Apples and oranges, really.

True, you likely have a much clearer idea of how a close friend is doing than how a Facebook “friend” you haven’t seen for 20 years is doing (people typically don’t tell you how they’re really doing on Facebook…they usually post the highlights, not the lowlights). But even in the case of close friends, you might only get a glimpse into the reality of their situation, not because they’re trying to keep things from you (although that can be the case at times), but because no matter how good we are at articulating our feelings, words are imperfect vessels for experience and emotion, and can never exactly convey the fullness of humanity.

The Power of Self-Observation (Catching Comparison While It’s Happening)

Okay, so you get that comparing yourself to others is the lose-lose trap of comparing your insides to someone else’s outsides. You get that you need to keep your eyes on your own proverbial test paper as you go through life. But you’re so used to measuring your own success—even right down to your mood—to others’. So how do you kick the habit?

This is where I wish I had some bright, shiny, 140-character fix to offer. Alas, working on any ingrained habit (and the vast majority of us are habitual self-comparers, even subtly) takes a heap of patience, a big dose of ongoing willingness to take tiny steps over and over (and retrace your steps when necessary), and self-compassion and perseverance when you inevitably backslide.

The most important part of feeling better about yourself in relation to how you perceive others are doing is to notice that you’re comparing yourself. That may sound overly reductive, but it’s not meant to. And it’s truly the most vital key in taking the edge off this oh-so-common habit. Noticing. And more specifically, noticing without judging yourself.

For instance, let’s consider….

Your friend calls you to share the good news of her job promotion, and you’re happy for her, you really are, but you can’t deny that you’ve deserved a promotion for years and are still waiting for one, and therefore even as you’re verbalizing congratulations to your friend, there’s a little voice in your head saying: Why her? Why not me? I’ve got more education and more experience in my job than she has in hers. And I need it more than her, too! She’s probably feeling sorry for me right now, wondering why I’m stuck at the bottom of the career ladder. Blech, I don’t want her pity! 

(And notice how in your imaginings of what’s in her head, even she’s comparing herself to you! And yet, you have no way of knowing that—self-comparison is such a tricky beast that it can convince you it’s privy to someone else’s mental script…)

In this scenario, your Job One is to notice that you’ve slipped into comparing yourself to her, and that you don’t like the feeling.

That’s it. Inwardly, you can say something like: Oh, I’m noticing that I’m comparing and coming up short. I don’t feel good about myself right now.

You don’t have to fight it (going to war in your head will only strengthen the foe), you don’t have to try to “fix” it. And you certainly don’t have to deny that you’re feeling puny in comparison to your promoted pal (denial never works anyway).

Most of all, reassure yourself with the knowledge that most people get caught up in the spiral of self-comparisons, at least at some time or another. Identifying that you fall prey to this pervasive habit and that it doesn’t feel good or healthy is extremely powerful and shows that you have the willingness to find a better way. And the good news about being human is that we have the capacity to create new habits to replace the old ones.

Until next time,

Dr. Rich Nicastro