Photo: Court Prather on Unsplash
Don't do it!
By Alexis George — Written on Jan 17, 2019
Being female, we've all been guilty of comparing ourselves to other women. We compare our body sizes, our hair, our personalities, our clothes, our successes (or lack thereof) and everything in between. Competition is in our nature, and comparing ourselves to our friends and our frienemies has become a part of our daily routine.
For most women, like myself, we are doing this subconsciously. It is human nature to notice the differences between yourself and someone else, especially when you perceive that person as being in a better position than you.
You look at the family she has and wonder why your family can’t be like that. You look at the job she has and wonder why you don’t make as much money as her. You look at her partner, car and house, and wonder how yours compare.
All of the wondering eats us alive. Many times we think there's nothing wrong with comparing if we're using them as motivation to better our own lives. Motivation to be a better friend, a better lover, a better worker. If we look at the positive impact a person is making and decide to try and make a stronger impact ourselves, there's no problem, right? But that's not typically how we work.
Our comparisons are superficial and are rooted in jealousy.
We focus on things that don’t matter and we make ourselves even more insecure, jealous and unsatisfied because of it. We hinder our ability to grow, stop ourselves from having genuine friendships, and prevent ourselves from being as happy as we can be.
Take a look below to find out what comparing yourself to other women does to your mind and to your life, and how important it is to focus on being the best you can be — without paying much thought to everyone else.
1. Comparing yourself to other women makes you feel insecure.
When you compare yourself to other women you are focusing on the parts of yourself that you feel self-conscious about. You don’t think you’re good enough, you don’t get approval from everyone, and you don’t feel confident in yourself. These realizations are only heightened after repeatedly looking at others to determine how things should be playing out in your life. You find yourself wallowing in this negative energy, and before you know it you will transfer this energy onto others. In order to make yourself feel better, you start to point out other people’s insecurities. Doing so brings a certain level of comfort because it allows you to see that other women don’t have it all together either.
However, it is not fair to other women to point out their insecurities just because we can’t accept our own. They can’t help it that when you look at them you see something that you want to change about yourself.
You should be uplifting other women, not tearing them down.
If no active effort is made to stop comparing ourselves to other women, then the vicious cycle of mistreating one another in the name of trying to feel better about ourselves will only continue to get worse.
2. It causes your jealousy to get the best of you.
It isn’t fun to be around someone who is jealous of you. You will find that your relationships with other women will start to fall apart as you continue to compare yourself.
Most women want women around them who will embrace their differences and who will genuinely be happy for their success. It is hard to do that when you are constantly bitter because you aren’t where you would like to be in your life. You will find that being envious brings you even more unhappiness.
In wasting time being unhappy about the other woman’s success you are taking away her happiness as well.
She will no longer want to share her achievements with you. People don’t like to be made feel like the bad guy for wanting to share good news. Being the jealous woman also puts a highlight on your lack of self-confidence. You can know that you aren’t the most confident person and work on improving that in your own way and on your own time. However, once other women start to recognize this, it only makes thing worse. You have now given them the ability to remind you of your shortcomings, something you were already beating yourself up about. This will only aid in keeping you down.
3. It will stop you from being able to be content.
Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” It couldn’t have been said any better.
When comparing yourself to others you are choosing to be unhappy. You are saying, "Forget about all of my successes, they don’t matter since they aren’t as grand as the other woman’s." This is no way to live. There will always be a woman doing “better” than you, so you will always want more. You will go crazy trying so hard to get something that just might not be meant for you. If you continue to compare yourself then you will lose control over your own life and your ability to change your circumstance. The more you tell yourself that you don’t have enough, the more likely it is for that to become your reality.
Shift your focus. While you may not be exactly where you want in life, take some pride in how far you have come. Doing this will only add to your happiness and allow you to put less focus on other people and more on doing everything you can to achieve your own goals. The result is being content with yourself and the decisions you make.
When you start to compare yourself to other women, stop to ask yourself why.
Why do you feel the way you do, and how can you come up with a solution to this problem? Doing so will benefit you in the long run. You will save yourself from a world of pain as you start to not only realize but accept that comparing yourself to other women will only harm you. You will have a negative attitude as you place unrealistic expectations on yourself. You can only be you, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Alexis George is a writer who covers love, relationship advice, astrology and personality topics.
