How I Quit Comparing
I was afraid of other people’s achievements, and it almost killed me.
In life, We can’t help but to always compare our lives with other people’s.
Their achievement, their luck, their wealth, their popularity, and the list goes on. It’s OK if you’re the type of person who feels motivated after. But what if you feel anxious? What if it destroys your mental health?
Thought I was entering a phase of FOMO but it could also be my real personality. This feeling is toxic, and before it consumes you whole, you will need to find a loophole, get out, and make peace with yourself.
I quit my dead-end, soul-sucking job to become a freelancer and open a small business. It’s not big, but it’s my own. I don’t have a lot of money, but I got the spirit to start. I started small and since then have been building my way up for the past 6 months. Slowly, but surely. It just never gets easier, I’ve lost a lot of money, made wrong decisions, and had a really depressing burn-out as well. But I am still here.
There was a time where my business didn’t go well. That particular time, I had very few customers for a whole month. It broke my heart to pieces. I tried analyzing what’s wrong. Is it the strategy? the product? is my luck running out? but I couldn’t think of anything. My mind just went blank.
Before this, I was a digital marketer with proven skills and ideas. I helped companies to build their business. But why can’t I do that with my own? where am I when I need myself the most?
I started feeling super shitty about someone else’s lives. I got butthurt over every damn thing. I stopped listening to people’s fun stories, stopped looking at people having fun on social media, stopped working on my projects, simply because I feel like I am not good enough whereas everybody’s on top of the world right now. It killed me, It took my productivity, it took my passion out of me. It’s shown me my evil side, something I did not know I had.
It took me a while to get out of that, and I’ll tell you how.
Realizing that we all have different path. I am me, and they are them.
Never compare yourself to others. It sounds really cliche, but it is still the hardest advice to follow. Believing that every one of us has different path, different struggles and different timing to reach the top is my way to do it. This belief has made me appreciate myself more and let things go a little bit. Yes, we may work hard, maybe even harder than other people. But when things aren’t meant to be, it will never be ours.
According to an Arabic proverb, “What is meant for you will reach you, even if it is beneath two mountains. And what isn’t meant for you won’t reach you, even if it is between your two lips.”
Not taking social media too seriously.
Think about it. On our social media, we always want to show our best self. Eating good food, travelling to famous places, having important meetings, showing off our “best-employee” trophies, and so on.
Sometimes it even leads other people to question their own lives, “why are they so lucky? why can’t I have what they have?”
Social media is not really a platform to show who we really are, it is to show people who we really want to be seen as. We make the best version of us on social media, we lead people to believe that we have this ((amazing)) life when truthfully, the stories we’ve heard, the photos we’ve seen, and the achievements we witnessed, are just the tip of the iceberg.
Wake up, the perfect life don’t exist. We all struggle at some point. Don’t get too worked up on their painting of “good and perfect lives”, it is only 10% of what they’re really going through.
My advice is, take a break, don’t overuse your social media. It’s made to be a fun platform. If it doesn’t provide you the entertainment and instead, making you feel insecure about yourself, it’s not worth it.
Just being present & appreciating myself more.
I tried to be a lil bit more attentive to my own life. Yes, it has ups and downs, but I always survived, and that’s why I’m still here. I told myself, it’s time to appreciate even the smallest achievement, and focus more on my blessings instead of my struggles. I still wake up everyday with no problem, I still have the chance to see my family on the weekend, I still eat 3 times a day, and I still have the fingers to write this post.
Try to focus on things that make you happy. That way, you’ll realize how happiness can be found in many things. your life may not be perfect. But it’s yours.
Focusing only on what’s important.
Back then, I tried to befriend almost everybody. I joined communities, I went to social dinners, reunion, I even tried to impress people I don’t know. I noticed that sometimes, I put too much effort on unimportant things, and that’s why I get so tired all the freaking damn time.
I started to focus more on things I really care about, care less about things that don’t really matter, and let go of all the things have no control over.
I started to really value my relationship with my bestfriends, I spend more time with my family, I don’t really wanna argue if it’s not important, and I invest more time for myself to brainstorm, unwind, have fun, and just live.
I started journaling.
Trust me, once you write your hearts out, you’ll be able to think clearer. The first time I tried journaling, I wrote about my SWOT analysis. My strength, weakness, opportunity and threats. I felt pretty exposed writing my weakness down, just because I always try to brush it off and make sure no one can see it. But it gave me a better understanding about myself.
Journaling also feels really therapeutic, I always try to write what I really feel (with no filter, whatsoever) and it also helps me remember the happy moments in my life that I tend to forget.
After all, your life is your life, and no one can really make you feel better but yourself. Take control, start doing things you can do, and start counting your blessings, not your problems.
