The answer may surprise you.
Unhealthy Comparisons
We are constantly told to avoid comparison. Theodore Roosevelt even has the famous quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy”.
I believe this is healthy advice when it comes to one’s surface aesthetics. Meaning, it’s not going to serve you if you compare your clothes to your neighbor’s clothes. And you’re not doing yourself any favors to compare your shoes, your purse, your makeup to those of your colleague’s. Or comparing your car to the one next to yours when you pull up into your parking space at work. Those are all surface aesthetics, the outside appearances. In my opinion, completely unnecessary. In these instances, comparison is the thief of joy, because there will always be someone with bigger or better.
Beneficial Comparisons
However-- Comparison can also serve as a tremendous benefit for achieving success. You may have always wanted to start your own business, or land the biggest sale, deal or agreement of your career, but you’ve noticed there are a lot of similar businesses already out there, or there are huge successes already in that area that you’re working on.
Instead of giving up or feeling defeated, you can use those as fuel to motivate your goals. Meaning: comparison can be used as proof that you can do it too.
Examine Your Mindset
Are you comparing your personal success to someone else’s and therefore setting restrictions on yourself? For example, “Oh, they’ve already reached that, so there’s no way I could also.”
That’s the challenge I have for you today: stop allowing those kind of thoughts to enter your mind. But rather, if you compare and think, “Wow, they just landed that huge sale” or “Look, that person just opened that new business”, turn that kind of comparison into, “That means I could do it too.”
My Final Challenge to You
If you have a dream, my challenge for you is to take a look at those who have achieved similar success.
Then start comparing yourself. What are they doing (or what did they do) that you can do too?
To summarize, it really comes down to your mindset. Do you have the mindset of abundance or scarcity? If you look around, I believe you’ll see that the possibilities are endless. Companies like Uber, for example, are redefining what is possible. They didn’t say, “We can’t do that, that’s not possible.” They said, “There has to be a better way”.
So if you see that others have done it already, or others have achieved success, use comparison as proof to fuel your success. You can do it too!
