Stop Comparing Your Life to Other People's Lives

Stop Comparing Your Life to Other People’s Lives

One of the surest ways to discontent is to look at someone else and think things like “Why him/her and not me?”

When you compare your life to someone else’s life, you are taking your eyes off of your journey and what is meant for you. Comparing your self to others can undermine your self concept. When you compare…

- - your progress to theirs,
  - your success to theirs,
  - your business to theirs,
  - your relationship to theirs,
  - your home to theirs,
  - your job to theirs,
  - your money to theirs,
  - your health to theirs,
  - your appearance to theirs…
then you are operating from a blue print that is not your own.

Stop Trying to Live Someone Else’s Life

Sometimes we look to others for their “good example.” In many ways this can be harmless and even helpful. The problem begins when you stop distinguishing between your attributes and theirs. The problem persists when you prefer their reality to yours.

Even if you are down and out and the other person seems like they are on top of the world, trust and believe that no life exists without challenges.

Your challenges were meant for you and their challenges were meant for them. When you confront and resolve the difficulties that lay before you…you get to go to your next level and guess that there will be new challenges there.

How to Be on Your Path

When you stop focusing on other people by comparing yourself to them and what they are doing or what they have accomplished, you will have more time for you and your journey.
- - - Step 1 – Be patient. Patience can be challenging when you want everything to either happen right now or as soon as possible. So patience is worth cultivating. Remind yourself that everything happens in its due time and not before. It’s okay to have plans but don’t push them and don’t force them.
    - Step 2 – Practice alignment. When you are on the wrong path, everything connected to those choices feels bad.
      - In your mind (thoughts) you are indecisive.
        
        In your heart (emotions) you feel pain.
        
        In your body (physical) you feel tension and stress.
        
        In your spirit (intuition) you know something is off.
      When you practice alignment, you wait for all four parts of self to be on one accord (on the same page).
    - Step 3 – Be on purpose. Be disciplined in action and on purpose in furtherance of what matters to you. You will know what matters to you because it is what you prioritize or what you want to prioritize. When you envision your life in that purpose, everything is in alignment. Put what matters to you most at the center of your being.

What Matters Most

When you put what matters to you most at the center of your being, you may find some obstacles to staying on your journey. For example –

- - You may value your health but you enjoy junk food.
  - Your family may matter most to you but you are still trying to build your career.
  - Love may matter most to you but you have difficulty expressing yourself or opening up to others.

Those barriers or obstacles are how you know where the work is. When you know where the work is then you know more about your intended path. Ultimately you should not compare yourself to anyone else because you don’t know what personal work and healing that person did to get where they are…and the truth is that their work has nothing to do with you.

Your Ideal Self

Be careful about comparing your current self to your ideal self. When you don’t like and accept who you are now, you are creating a barrier to everything that you want to cultivate and receive in your life. Be kind to yourself and at the same time pick relationships with others where you hold one another accountable.

If you don’t feel comfortable being accountable to others then you are likely blocking healthy relationships. Overly permissive relationships are filled with fear. Fear that if one or the other says “No,” that the other person will disappear or throw a tantrum. Even if you have relationships with others that are like that, you can’t fix it by doing more of the same.

Change starts with you. You can’t change other people. But you can change your expediences by being different. Your ideal self has it all, right? Well…guess what? The only barrier to being your ideal self right now is that you think you need something more than what you already are in order to be whole. When you forgive yourself, do honorable things, and behave in respectful ways toward yourself and everyone else… then no obstacle in your path will be there for long.

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