Comparison Doesn’t Deliver Contentment

One of the things that I see with Life Coaching clients that can be frustrating is the insistence that they compare themselves to others when setting goals.

They may work in sales and decide that they want to earn more than a top performing peer, or think that to be happy they have to be as slim as a friend or even worse, a movie star, or believe that the only true measure of business success is to generate more revenue than a competitor.

Let me tell you that this practice is doomed to failure 99 times out of 100.

With over 6 billion people wandering around this planet there is always going to be people that are better than you and there are always going to be people that are worse than you no matter how you stack it.

By comparing yourself to others and that goes for either individuals or groups of people you are handing over control to outside forces over which you have no influence. What happens if that sales person takes it up another notch, or that friend drops another 7lbs or that competitor suddenly expands by acquisition?

I will tell you what happens. You will almost certainly become either frustrated, annoyed, dispirited or possibly all three.

There are a handful of people that can say unequivocally that they are the best at what they do but that supremacy will be confined to one tiny area of expertise.

Tiger Woods may well be the best golfer in the world but there are a great many people that can run faster, jump higher, think quicker, paint better, drive faster and whatever other criteria you care to mention and measure.

Do you really think that Tiger sits at home worried because somebody earns more money than him or is stronger, or can do the Sudoku quicker? I doubt it. If he did it would certainly not allow him to focus with such clarity out on the golf course and would lead to a rapid decline in his performance.

There is only one person that you should ever compare yourself to on a regular basis and that is you.

If there are areas of your life that you wish to improve on then good for you, go ahead and set yourself a goal or goals.

Then measure where you are now and try and beat that. You have complete control and if you continue to improve and move toward your goal then each step on the way will result in a feeling of achievement and not a glance over your shoulder to see what somebody else is doing and whether it is ok to feel good or not.

A tip for you, it’s always ok to feel good about yourself.