Celebrate who you are

There are many wonderful things about you and your life. Doesn't matter if you are an artist, or a businessman, or a mother, or a good listener, or a generous soul. You have much to celebrate and are entirely unique from any other individual on the planet. Any comparison between you and another person is like comparing apples to oranges. They aren’t living your life, you are. Therefore, you should expect the results to be completely different. Celebrate those differences, and begin by focusing only on you and your own successes. 

Focus inward

Value generosity, humility, goodness, kindness, and love. Begin to focus on developing the inward qualities of a simplified life and it will begin to reflect out in the physical world. Your values will begin to shift and what you find more important will change. The quicker we find beauty on the inside, the sooner we’ll stop comparing things that are superficial and unimportant on the outside (skin-deep beauty, paychecks, or power).

Realize life is not a competition

There may be times when competition is appropriate, but life is not one of them. We have all been thrown together at this exact moment on this planet. And the sooner we stop competing against others to “win,” the faster we can start working together to figure out this beautiful mystery of life.

Remember that nobody is perfect 

We live in a society that glamorizes perfection. Consider that magazine racks are full of models and celebrities with perfect faces telling one-sided stories of great triumph and fulfillment. One important step to avoiding the lure of comparison is to remember that one snapshot in time never tells the whole story. The story is never told of the hours in a make-up room or the photo editing technique to cover the blemishes. The story is rarely told of their insecurities or failures (except to mention how they overcame them). That story doesn’t sell nearly as many magazines. But the truth remains: there are no perfect people – including you and including me.

Live as intentionally as possible

Too many people live their lives without intentionality or thought. They rarely find a quiet moment to sit in meditation or solitude and examine their life – who they are and who they are becoming. As a result, lives are lived as a reaction to the events around them. But when a life is lived intentionally and thoughtfully, the comparison game becomes less attractive.

As humans, it is in our nature to compare ourselves to others. But nothing good ever comes from it. So let’s stop comparing ourselves to others. We were not born to live their life. There is no sense wasting our life (or energy) being jealous of theirs. Instead, let’s start living our own lives. Let’s be determined today to be good at it. After all, we only get one shot.