I generally do not compare myself with others, at least not consciously. I usually think positively about myself, my life, and my situation. I tend to feel happy. However, there are times when I experience comparison feelings almost automatically, and they feel really sad and hurtful.
It generally happens when I see someone who is better than me, especially financially or in other goals. When I see someone around my age who is very successful on social media like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc., I start to feel these comparison feelings. I do not feel this way all the time, but specific persons trigger these feelings.
I do not have any personal reasons or agenda for feeling envy towards others. Rather, when I see them, some thoughts come to my mind almost automatically. For example, I see someone financially successful because they chose a good career in the past. A thought comes to my mind that if I had chosen a similar career, I would be in a better position now. If I had attended that college, I would be in a good job. It’s just thoughts of regrets and shoulding.
I think I am not alone in this. Everyone gets these comparison feelings from time to time. If you use social media, you will get more such feelings. You always find some very successful person around your age, and automatic thoughts come to your mind, like “if I had this,” “if I had done that,” etc. You know you should not think like that, but your mind thinks this way automatically, and you have little control over it.
You try to think positively about your life and let these thoughts go, which is a great strategy, but this does not work most times. It takes a long time to get rid of these negative feelings. I have struggled with these comparison feelings. They can be called envy feelings, where you automatically feel envy towards such persons, or you can call this a type of jealousy. Whatever you call it, it feels like shit. You lose your peace of mind, your mood swings, you cannot focus, and you are prone to distractions. I faced it too.
If you observe deeply, you will find another unique pattern. You do not feel jealous when you compare yourself with someone lower than you. When you compare yourself with them, you feel superior, not envious. It feels better about your own life. When you compare yourself with someone much older and more successful, you feel inspiration, not envy.
But when you compare yourself with someone younger or around your age, you feel very hurt. This is real envy. You feel inferior, regret your choices, and your mind is filled with shoulding thoughts. You can’t avoid these comparison feelings. In this era of high digital distractions via social media, you will always find some persons who trigger such envy feelings. This is not only your problem; everyone faces it almost every day.
Even a very rich person feels envious of another rich person. Anything we do not have that someone else does will cause automatic comparison or envy feelings.
Solution:
In the past, I used some techniques that worked but were slow. Techniques like stopping thinking about others, thinking positively about my life, justifying my life, accepting my past, accepting my life, respecting others, etc. When the feelings worsened and I felt very inferior, I would write down my thoughts to calm myself. But all these techniques were not very effective.
I wanted a faster-working technique or formula, and I found it. Not by myself, but from one of my favorite books, “Visual CBT.” Before telling you this formula, let me share another formula I created. You can use it if it seems applicable to you.
Example: I found myself feeling envious of someone’s success, and it triggered these feelings. I would think logically and try to accept the facts. I would think that person’s life is different from mine. Because of this difference, they have their life, and I have mine. I cannot change my past or present very fast, but I will change my future gradually. I will have a good life.
There are more points, but they take a long time and multiple attempts to get rid of envy feelings. Also, I was very cautious about avoiding triggers. I used very little social media, ignored knowing more about others, avoided some people and social occasions, etc.
Another disadvantage was that the envy feelings came back. Even if they went away for some days, the next time I faced the same trigger, I got the same negative emotions and had to go through my process again. It was time-consuming and sometimes frustrating.
As an open-minded person, avoiding others caused cognitive dissonance. I wanted to know more about other successful people and learn from them. As an entrepreneur, I needed to use social media for marketing purposes and network with other successful people. But these envy feelings were causing lots of trouble. I really needed help.
Fortunately, help was there. Below is the formula I use every time I sense comparison-related envy or jealousy feelings. This works very fast, and after just a few minutes, I feel normal. The best part is that it does not come back, at least not with the same trigger.
Due to this technique, I am now 90% free from auto comparison-related envy or jealousy feelings. Why 90% and not 100%? Because it is not realistically possible to be free from all types of comparison feelings. There will always be new triggers. So, accepting them as facts and using my formula is the right solution.
Formula To Deal With Comparison Feelings:
First, use my Quick CBT Formula. Whenever you find yourself feeling envy or jealousy towards others, use this as soon as possible.
Example: Someone’s success causes envy feelings inside you. Now try to think like this:
- I wish I were successful like them, but this does not mean I must be successful like them. There is no musting.
- I am not like them, which is technically bad. But it is not that bad. There are many worse situations in the world, and not being as successful as them is not that bad.
- Not being like them is very painful for me, but it is not the worst kind of pain. There are many worse types of pain in the world, and this is not that pain.
- Not being like them does not make me a bad person. I am a fallible human being, and I always will be.
- Whatever I think now is realistic, makes sense, and is good for me.
After this, you will feel very good about yourself, and your conscious mind will stop bothering you with comparison thoughts. It will be calmer. This will take just 1-2 minutes to think like that. Doing this 1-2 times is enough.
Second, after using this, there will be some remaining comparison thoughts in your mind. If you do not engage with them, they will go away automatically. But our impulsive mind will always try to engage. So, use my simple letting go formula. For a few minutes, let them go. Engage in other things or your usual tasks. Gradually, these remaining thoughts will go away.
Now you will be officially free from these comparison feelings. You will feel great relief.
If you want to feel even better about yourself, use the “Gain Thesis” and “Hope Thesis.” I will talk about these at another time.
Bye bye.
Regards,
Debashish Ghadei
