We spend time on social media reading about others triumphs, others happy events, others great news. And we compare that to our lives. We often use what we see to tell ourselves that we are not enough. We don’t have enough—enough success, enough money, enough fun, enough joy, enough relationships, and on and on. We use what we observe, on social media, on television, in the paper, at work, at networking events to compare ourselves to others. It is a natural human response. We are hard wired to compete—think survival of the fittest. To fight our hard wiring takes conscious effort. And I am not saying every single person uses comparison to diminish themselves. However, many people do and it is deadly to your own success and happiness.

I recently have been reading a fantastic book, “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor. In this book he points out that often people are hardwired for pessimism and with a few small changes practiced regularly you can change from a pessimist to an optimist. Further, he speaks about an exercise where you write out all the details of a positive experience and your brain re-experiences the positive experience, thereby doubling that one’s experience on you and your enjoyment of your life. I observed how this phenomenon works with negative experiences in my own life.

My husband and I recently moved into our new home. We live in south central Texas, where the temperatures are often in the triple digits for months at a time. We love our pools here! We built a pool. It is the perfect design and everything we wanted to enjoy. However…. The company made major mistakes with the final finish. We have been dealing with this issue and working to get it resolved for months. A couple of weeks ago, when I was going to be out of town, an expert on plaster finishes was scheduled to come to our house to give her opinion to add for the resolution of this problem. Up to this point, I had handled all the consults. I had to write out all the details and timeline for my husband so he could give the expert the facts. I observed that I got very upset reliving the entire process. What I observed then, and have been observing since is just like Shawn Achor points out when you write out the positive experiences  you double the pleasure, that works in reverse. You write out, or even tell in detail, a negative experience, you double the negativity and unhappiness.

Thus, when observing other people’s accomplishments and comparing yourself in a negative way, it is deadly to your experience of your own accomplishments. This habit serves to have you gather the evidence for your inner fears that you are not really good enough in some form or fashion. I have seen this in myself and have coached thousands of people about this very habit. And it is a habit. And like all habits, you can break it and create a new empowering habit in it’s place.

Here are some new habits you could create and practice:

• When observing other people’s accomplishments, in whatever area of life you are observing (work, business, money, joy, relationships, achievement, family, etc.), take a couple of minutes and find one accomplishment or happy moment in that same area and either write it out or share it in detail with someone.
• If you notice you have feelings of envy in a particular area regularly, start asking questions so that you can learn and elevate whatever you are envious about. Envy only is happening because of the perception that they have something you want. So get curious!
  • Examples:
    • You see your friend on social media share a promotion or a new business. You are envious and wish you were doing that well.
      • Contact them and ask them specific questions that would contribute to you getting a promotion or starting a business. This will require you actually sitting down and thinking about what you need to know to forward getting what you want. The action of thinking what you want to know, will not only have you stop the negative emotions and experience but will help you get some knowledge and work on skills that you may want to use to fulfill getting what you really do want.
    • You observe someone you know appears to be in a very happy relationship. You are envious as you don’t have a happy relationship or maybe a primary relationship at all.
      • Contact them and ask them to share one thing that has their relationship working so well. Again, here you are displacing your envy, and your own unhappiness with discovery and fortitude to get what you want.

These are just a few examples of new actions that,  if practiced regularly, can become new habits. When you use comparison to learn and grow, you turn it from a deadly habit to an empowering habit.