Yes, we all do it. We compare ourselves to others and measure our skills/worth/insertyourwordhere against other people. I catch myself doing this often enough. How about you?
It is not necessarily a terrible thing to gauge your own progress by looking around you. Valuable feedback and insight can be gained by seeing what others can do. Other people’s success stories can be very motivating, after all. If you are even a little competitive, looking at someone who is “better” can be a great strategy.
The flip side is that comparing yourself to others can be destructive too. If you are prone to feeling inferior or defeated, then it will be counterproductive. It’s even worse when you unintentionally compare yourself to the wrong people.
I know a woman who is an awesome inspirational speaker, but her self-confidence suffers. Success in this type of business can be very subjective, so she often compares herself to others in order to gauge how she was doing. Unfortunately, she likes to compare herself to nationally known professional speakers (think Zig Ziglar) and of course, she always comes up way short!
My art students do this all the time. They compare their paintings with mine. Never mind that I’ve been learning and practicing for 20+ years and they are just beginning.
In both of these cases, the yardsticks they are using have a limited sampling of the whole population. If your comparison group is skewed, then of course you are going to feel inferior.
Next time your confidence is shaking, and you are questioning your skills/worth/insertyourwordhere, take a few minutes to evaluate your yardstick. Measuring yourself against others only works if you choose the right yardstick!
Who is in your comparison group? Who should be?
