Don’t Get Caught in the Trap of Comparison
A few years ago a woman sent me an e-mail suggesting that I check out the website of another author/speaker. She said he reminded her of me and thought we should know each other. I looked at his site and was very impressed by him and his work. In addition, I quickly found that I was unconsciously comparing myself to him. My gremlin started telling me how much better this guy was than me. Look at him, he’s a stud: funny, good-looking, and savvy. His site is way cooler than mine, his approach is more hip, and he has this whole thing figured out much better than I do. After looking at his website for just a few minutes and listening to my gremlin, I found that I was feeling jealous, inferior, self-conscious, and deflated.
Sadly, many of us spend and waste a lot of time and energy comparing ourselves to others in this way. Feeling jealous is a natural human emotion. And it’s pretty common—especially given the nature of how most of us were raised and the competitive culture in which we live. However, comparison can have a negative impact on us, our dreams, our relationships, and many of the things we hold most sacred.
Our personal and cultural obsession with competition and comparison isn’t new, although it seems to have intensified in the past few years with the explosion of social media, and how we share everything with one another in such a public way. I personally enjoy being able to celebrate the exciting stuff happening in other people’s lives, and being able to share some of my own “good stuff” with others as well. At the same time, it can be a bit of a double-edged sword. While I’m often inspired by and excited about the success of others, especially those closest to me, depending on how I’m feeling about myself at any given moment, I can get easily triggered by their success and end up feeling insecure in comparison to them—especially if they accomplish something I’m still striving for.
On the flip side, I’ve noticed that this forum can also inspire bragging or feeling a sense of superiority when something goes really well in my life. This is even harder to admit and confront. And while it may seem like the opposite of insecurity, it’s actually just the other side of the same coin. Heads, we feel superior, tails, we feel inferior. Both are detrimental to our growth and ultimately our sense of peace, fulfillment, and joy in life. This is a negative ego trap—and there are no true winners in this game. As Mark Twain said, “Comparison is the death of joy.”
Growing up as a competitive athlete, I got lots of early experience and training about how to compete against others and try to beat them. This wasn’t just about the other team; often the biggest and most intense competition was with my friends and fellow teammates.
On our baseball team at Stanford, there were almost 40 players on the total roster, 18 of whom were pitchers like me. When we’d travel to play games against other teams in our conference, only 22 guys were allowed to go on the trip and be on the active roster. Eight of these guys were pitchers. During a weekend three-game series, there were three starting pitchers, and usually only two or three of the relief pitchers would get a chance to pitch, depending on how the games unfolded. This meant that about half of the team and more than half of all the pitchers didn’t even get to make the trip, let alone get a chance to play in the games. Needless to say, it created a pretty stressful and internally competitive environment. Some of my teammates were very close friends of mine whom I cared a lot about. Yet, at the same time, we were competing for a limited number of spots—like a cruel and very public game of musical chairs that we all wanted to win.
Whether it was in baseball, school, or other areas of life, I often found myself directly or indirectly competing in a pretty intense way with those around me when I was younger.
Although I’ve worked through and outgrown certain aspects of my intense competitive and comparative tendencies (and it’s been more than 15 years since I played baseball competitively), I still find myself threatened by the success of others, at times—as if we’re competing against one another for a limited number of “spots” or as if their success takes something away from me, which, in just about every case, it doesn’t.
It’s important to understand, however, that there is both negative and positive competition. Negative competition, which most of us are more familiar with, is based on two limiting and negative notions: First is the black-and-white idea of “us against them”—when we win, we’re good, and when we lose, we’re bad. Second is the stressful and damaging concept of scarcity—that there’s a finite amount of success to go around, and if someone else succeeds, it takes away from us. Based on these notions, the goal is to beat anyone and everyone around us or, at the very least, avoid losing, and get as much as we can before someone else does. Sadly, this type of negative competition is everywhere in our culture and has been ingrained in how we operate in life, business, and even personal relationships. We have to be mindful of our own tendencies, and of our cultural programming, so as not to fall into this negative trap.
Positive competition, on the other hand, is about challenging ourselves, pushing our limits, and allowing the talent, skill, and support of others to help take us to the next level. When we compete in this conscious way, it’s beautiful, important, and healthy—and has nothing to do with our true value as human beings. In other words, we aren’t better or worse based on how we perform.
A simple example of this is with physical exercise. When we work out with another person, or with a group of people, we usually get more out of it. Why is this? Because we’re challenged and held accountable, which forces us to show up, go beyond our perceived limits, and not quit (even if we want to). The competitive aspect of this remains positive and healthy as long as we simply allow ourselves to be pushed without looking for a particular outcome. It can turn negative if we allow our egos to take over and place value on who lifts more weight, who runs faster, or who “wins.”
Of course, there are times in life and in business when we will “win” and times when we will “lose” based on whatever “game” we’re playing and however we’re measuring our results. And while there is a real impact to the results that we produce, living life as if it’s a competition with everyone around us is a recipe for disaster.
When we’re willing to let go of the ideas and decisions we made as kids and teenagers about who we are, and what makes us successful or valuable, we can step into a healthier version of competition that can truly empower and inspire us. It can help us move to new heights and depths in our relationships, our work, and our lives. Getting caught in the negative trap of comparison, while common and understandable, is a choice we make; it isn’t something we have to do. When we’re willing to notice our comparative tendencies, we can consciously choose to disengage in negative competition, and, more important, choose to appreciate and value ourselves in an authentic way.