Stop Comparing Yourself 9-8-25

Dayna Culwell
Feb 13
4 min read

"Your successes are not my failures.",

Assistant Editor of Nice News Rebekah Brandes

Welcome to Yoga Therapy by Dayna!

How Not To Compare Ourselves to Others

Thank you for taking a look! This week I’d like to address an area that predominates among Social Media followers, but it goes way beyond that. As human beings, we have a natural tendency to find happiness in direct proportion to the happiness we see around us.

Check out Yoga Sutra 1.33

Ideally, we celebrate communal happiness by lifting the spirits of people around us. The Yoga Sutras encourage this behavior as does every good yoga class you attend. We can send a spirit of collective positive energy to each other and to those who need it.

However, what happens more than not is our unavoidable ability to compare ourselves with others. The comparison isn’t evil in itself; it's the results of that comparison that can pump us up or tear ourselves down.

Finding Joy in an Ego-Centric World

This morning when I opened up my Nice News update, the following introduction popped up in my email feed. “When Assistant Editor Rebekah Brandes was in her early 20s, starting to make her way in the world and experiencing her first achievements as an adult, her best friend said something that’s stuck in her mind ever since: “Your successes are not my failures.” I think this might make a good bumper sticker. Egos can be so fragile (or obstinate). Both can be dangerous but both can also be manageable.

Tip: Make sure our cache of joy is being constantly replenished.

It is important to celebrate your wins in less public ways — with the people who matter to you, and most importantly, in your own mind.

Tip: Keep a written record of all the good things you do.

If you ace a project at work, record it. If you help a friend in a crisis, add it. If you dragged Yourself to a yoga class on a morning you really didn’t want to go, include it too. Looking at all you achieve, both big and small, can go a long way to boosting your self-esteem. These wins don’t need to be huge, just acknowledged.

Consider this. Shiny happy posts on Facebook or Instagram provide a “snippet of a moment, not the fully fleshed out reality,” according to Janelle Peifer, a licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Richmond. Being aware of the tendency to scroll social media can help you see yourself and others more clearly. This will prevent your self-esteem from taking any unnecessary hits.

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Ask yourself the following questions.

Are the people you’re comparing yourself to at the same stage as you? Do they come from the same circumstances?

In whatever goal you are working on, you might ask yourself,

“Am I growing? Yes.
Am I adding value to the world? Yes.
Am I accomplishing my goals? Yes.
Am I helping people? Yes.
Tip: Re-focus on what matters.

But you also must address the root of why you feel this way. It’s a reflection of how we feel about ourselves.

Try Delicious Deep Stretch This Monday at Noon

Tip: Focus on Your Own Goals

Rebeka Brandes, writer for Nice News, says “Mental energy spent comparing yourself to others, and subsequently feeling down about it, is mental energy that could be spent doing something else — like actually improving your life. Now, you shouldn’t feel compelled to improve your life just to keep up with the Joneses, of course, but if you suspect the real reason you feel inadequate next to others is because you want more for yourself, use that as motivation.

The host of the podcast Entrepreneurs On Fire, John Lee Dumas, offers this advice: “Focus on getting 1% better in three areas of your life every day. Health, relationships, and business. If you do that, you will be amazed at where you are in three years,” he suggested. “This is actionable, measurable, and within your control.” It’s also important to give yourself substantive aims so that you can narrow in on what matters and work toward it, Dumas said. “Without a north star, you are a ship without a rudder.”