How to stop comparing yourself to others now, in the age of social media, popular influencers, success stories, the productivity cult? How to stop comparing yourself to others when every day you see people who are, as it seems, more successful, more beautiful, wealthier, happier, healthier, fitter, more productive, more persistent, who have achieved more than you by their 30s, who do something that you only can dream about, who have better apartments, who have better cars, who have more opportunities to donate to charity, etc. than you? Here you’ll find tips on how to stop comparing yourself to others on social media as well as in real life and break free from this bad habit.

Tips on how to stop comparing yourself to others on social media

• Accept your psychological issues
• Understand that people show and tell you only what they allow you to know
• Understand that following someone else’s dreams won’t make you happy
• Understand that copying someone else you lose your own uniqueness
• Identify your true dreams and make them your goals
• Every day do something that will get you closer to your goal
• Remember that envy withdraws time and energy from you
• Distance from those who trigger the desire to compare yourself
• Strive to become not better than someone but better than you were

To get rid of this bad habit and learn how to stop comparing yourself to others on social media, you’ll need to do some mental work.

Accept your psychological issues

Let’s start looking for answers to the question “how to stop comparing yourself to others?” with identifying the most important thing. The reason why you keep comparing yourself to others is rooted deep in your subconscious. Try to understand what makes you compare, compete, and envy others. Is it the thought that you are not good enough? Why would you think that you are not good enough? Ask yourself questions and answering them, you will find the answer.

Maybe you compare yourself to others because your parents didn’t spend enough time with you in your childhood; maybe they paid more attention to your sibling than to you, so you had to compete for attention and ask yourself “am I worse? What can I do to become more likable?”; or maybe you were raised by a single parent, so now you want more attention to yourself from other people like you would want attention from the parent you never had which is why you compare yourself to people who get more attention or praise than you on social media or in real life.

Maybe you compare yourself to others your family had financial problems in your childhood, so you couldn’t afford what you wanted and learned to compare yourself to other kids who had more than you which is why now you want to become wealthier than other people, more successful than other people and keep comparing yourself to others and competing with everyone.

Maybe someone has ever told you that you are not beautiful or that you’re too thin or too thick or whatever else, which is why now you compare your appearance to other people’s appearance. Even the tiniest unpleasant situation in childhood could influence the way you think now. Find what exactly makes you compare yourself to others. Deep down you know what traumatized you in the past and that is the cornerstone to this bad habit and one of the answers to the question “how to stop comparing yourself to others?”.

Understand that people show and tell you only what they allow you to know

When you look at someone to compare yourself to, you usually know just one side of their life – the one they allow you to see. If you see a successful person, you usually see the results but not the process and not the problems that person had to overcome to achieve that success. Maybe that person had to sacrifice something you are unwilling to sacrifice, so what’s the point in comparing yourself to them then? When you see a beautiful person, you know nothing about the life struggles that person may have as well as about plastic surgeries they may have done. You know nothing about family issues of someone who seems to have a perfect family. It may be that you are much happier than the person you compare yourself to. Never underestimate what you have.

Understand that following someone else’s dreams won’t make you happy

Think twice before you compare yourself to others on social media because it’s likely you wouldn’t want to be that person. For example, people often compare their financial status to that of some successful, wealthy, and popular people. People think that if only they were that wealthy, they’d buy expensive stuff in great numbers just like popular people show on their social media. However, most people want a lot of expensive stuff just for getting external validation. To be approved of by society, get attention, fame, be praised, etc. If these people understand what makes them crave external validation, they’ll understand how stupid the desire for external validation in reality is. Read Why You Don’t Need Validation from Others.

The truth is that you have your own dreams and the more you understand yourself, the more free from the opinion of society you become. Knowing your true dreams, having no need for external validation, you will be much happier having less than someone you compare yourself to is, having more than you (as you suppose). Low self-esteem and, as a result, the need for validation from others (social approval) make people unhappy no matter how successful, wealthy, beautiful, etc. they are. Identify your true needs and desires, don’t copy other people. Focus your own business and let them deal with their own psychological issues.

Understand that copying someone else you lose your own uniqueness

Learning how to stop comparing yourself to others is very important because otherwise, you can lose yourself. People who compare themselves to others often copy those others. When you copy something, instead of expressing yourself, you start losing your uniqueness. Instead of creating something new, something fresh, you just slightly alter what has already existed. If you want to be unique, if you want to be valued, if you want to be respected, if you want to be successful – be yourself.

You don’t have to wear something that will make you more likable, you don’t have to be likable; you don’t have to say something people expect to hear from you if you don’t feel it; you don’t have to dream about something everyone else is dreaming about, etc. Wear, do, say, buy what you like, what makes you happy, what you think is valuable, etc. Be YOU!

Identify your true dreams and make them your goals

Knowing how to stop comparing yourself to others will benefit your mental health and your happiness. As already mentioned above, following someone else’s dreams can’t make you happy. So, it’s important to identify your true dreams and then make them your goals because otherwise they’ll remain just dreams forever.

Stop comparing yourself to influencers on social media, to people you know and to famous people. What matters to them may not matter to you. For example, I used to follow fashion influencers on Instagram and I thought that it’s my dream to be able to afford to dress like them. However, when I started analyzing my so-called dreams, I understood that I don’t care about fashion. I am not ready to wear uncomfortable clothes to look good, be likable and get validation from others. I don’t want to impress people with my looks because I don’t care whether they like me or not. I don’t need validation from others because whatever people may think of me will not change me and it holds no value to me. The only opinion about me that matters to me is my own opinion. If someone doesn’t like my look or thinks I’m not feminine enough or not neat enough or that my outfit is not trendy enough or is cheap, I don’t care.

And while those fashion influencers have to post on Instagram because it’s their job, I don’t have to compete with them, I don’t have to showcase my style to my followers, I don’t have to showcase my beauty, I don’t have to showcase my wealth, I don’t have to meet or exceed someone’s expectations because Instagram is not my job and as for external validation it provides, I don’t need it either. So, this is how I figured out that being fashionable and being able to afford many expensive clothes is not my dream.

Knowing your true dreams saves a lot of time you would spend on fulfilling those dreams imposed on you by society and money you would spend on fulfilling them. Moreover, knowing your true dreams you will never feel disappointed because of not feeling satisfied after fulfillment of those fake dreams. When constantly chasing someone else’s dreams that you think are you own, you’ll never feel that it’s enough. There always will be someone more fashionable, wealthier, more beautiful, smarter, fitter, etc. It’s a never ending race! How to stop comparing yourself to others? Stop competing. Stop rushing! Listen to yourself and do what matters to you. You may want to read more about Instagram Illusions here.

Every day do something that will get you closer to your goal

When you’ve identified your true dreams, make a plan because from now on your dreams are your goals. Remember it and don’t be lazy, every day do something that will get you closer to your goal. Persistence pays off. Find amazing motivational quotes for success with phone wallpapers here.

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Remember that envy withdraws time and energy from you

Envying someone is just loss of time and energy you could spend on doing something important that could help you reach your goal. Whenever you notice yourself envying someone, change your focus to your goal and immediately start doing something that will get you closer to it.

Distance from those who trigger the desire to compare yourself

How to stop comparing yourself to others on social media when there are so many triggers? Instagram is all about bragging and showing why you’re better than the rest. If there are people who like boasting or if there’s someone you just can’t help envying, try to distance from that person. If it’s someone on social media, it’s even easier to distance from them than in real life.

Strive to become not better than someone but better than you were

Comparing yourself to others makes no sense because all people come from different backgrounds. You don’t know other people’s life stories, you just know about them what they let you know. It’s difficult to compete with someone who comes from a wealthy family while you had to pay for your education yourself; it’s difficult to compete with someone who sacrifices everything for spending hours in the gym; it’s difficult to compete with someone who had several plastic surgeries while you wouldn’t do a single one; it difficult to compete with someone who gets up at 5 AM and can sleep for just 6 hours every day, so all their days are very productive and full of events, while you need at least 8 hours of sleep. When you compare yourself to others on social media, the competition is unfair from the very beginning.

So, instead of striving to outperform someone else, strive to outperform yourself a month ago, a year ago, etc. it’s more fair and it boosts personal development. Set time frames for achievement of your goals and then analyze your performance. If you do as recommended in this blogpost: identify your true dreams, make them your goals, make a plan for achievement of your goals, every day do something that will get you closer to those goals, and set time frames to analyze your performance, when the time for the analysis comes – you’ll be amazed. Because no matter whether you believe you’re capable of achieving your goals or not, if you stay persistent and do some work every day, you’ll get some results.

“Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling.” The results depend on you: you can always achieve more if you work more on your goals. In case you can’t start pursuing your dreams because of procrastination, read How to Stop Procrastination.

So, this is my advice on how to stop comparing yourself to others on social media. Don’t devalue your own talents and achievements. While you dream of becoming someone else or living someone else’s life, you just lose your time and energy that could be spent on fulfillment of your true dreams. Nothing is impossible, you can live your dream life, I believe in you which is why I created Life-Changing Affirmations for Women and 42 Positive Affirmations with Wallpapers for Phone. Also, see Inspirational Quotes for Going Through Hard Times. Comparing yourself to others causes anxiety and stress. Read How to Relieve Stress Quickly.