How to Not Compare Yourself With Other People

Yoga can teach you how not to set yourself up for a life of comparing yourself with other people. You are on your own path and other people are on theirs.

Does it matter who wore it best or who has accumulated more things?

Did you get a better grade on your test than everyone else?

What is everyone else wearing?

Where is everyone else going to college?

What is everyone else doing for a living?

All of these questions set me up to live a life of comparison.

I didn’t want to carry that.

So I didn’t.

But just as yoga is a practice, not comparing yourself with others is also a practice. Comparing has become a competition, almost a compulsion, to see who wore it better, did it better and has it better.

In the age of social media, how do you not compare? If you have a social media account, it’s almost a given that you're in some way sizing yourself up with your friends and family members.

Look, we’re each living our own beautifully unique lives, and constant comparison is not fair to ourselves or to other people.

I challenge you to follow a different standard. Your own.

This is what I do on my yoga mat that helps me in the rest of my life. I don’t compare my practice with the yoga practice of others. We all arrive on our mats and in our lives with different needs, and so it doesn’t serve us to compare ourselves with our neighbors. In yoga, we leave our egos at the door.

I recently came across a sign that said:

Be You

Do You

For You

I love this sign and I think about it often because we’re not here to compare. We’re here to understand and know ourselves and each other, and to maximize our potential to better ourselves and humanity.

The next time you find yourself comparing yourself with someone else, take a deep inhale, and as you exhale, flush it out and let it go.

You’re not less than; you’re more than you could ever imagine.

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Practice It: What Makes You Unique?

We are all made wonderfully unique, which makes the world vibrant and beautiful. How are you unique? What are the first things that come to mind? How do you celebrate your unique qualities? Get out your journal and jot down your thoughts.