“Facebook (META) makes me feel so badly about my life. I think I’m doing well, and then I see all the amazing things everyone else is doing and I think to myself, ‘God, I am such a loser,'” laments my client.
“Well that’s constructive,” I facetiously say. “Why are you comparing yourself to everyone else? You are not living their lives; you are living your life.”
“I know, but I can’t help comparing myself to them when I see all their success. It makes me anxious—almost as if I am behind the gun and I have a lot to catch up with,” she says.
“Why do you need to get to where they are? Why can’t you appreciate where you are?” I ask.
Mind your own social business. Keep your face out of nose-book.
We are definitely a “nosy” social culture. With today’s technology, it’s easy to focus on everyone’s perceived triumphs. Our digital era has rendered us social voyeurs. Years ago, we had no idea what people were doing with their lives. Today, we know what our grade-school teacher had for lunch.
The accessibility of information should never take you off your path. Don’t use others’ successes as a yardstick for measuring your own. It’s like trying to use a 12” ruler to measure the circumference of a beach ball—it doesn’t quite work. One can never be an accurate measure of another.
Everyone is on their own path. Everyone is here to put out their unique gifts and talents. When you decide that everyone else is doing better than you, you are prioritizing their life path and diminishing your own. In reality, their life path has nothing to do with yours. So if you cannot appreciate what others are sharing about their lives, then keep your face out of nose-book. Stop using nosiness as an excuse to beat yourself up and restrict your own progress. If you can’t find inspiration through social media, take a break from it until you can again. Social media isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but your life has to.
It doesn’t matter what people are doing with their lives. It only matters what you are doing.
Your life isn’t a competition with others. Life is a competition with yourself to be better than you were the day before. Stop comparing yourself to where others are and start being where you are. Make that your dominant intention. Say to yourself, “I want to live my best life—right here, right now.” By putting your energy into that intention, you will see your life start to manifest amazing success. Everything is about energy. You get more of what you put your energy into. Are you going to focus it on resenting the success of others or is it smarter to put your energy into developing your own success?
Competition takes you out of the running of your own life.
When you compare yourself to others, you give them your power. It’s an energy game. When all your energy is focused on resenting others’ success, you become a pawn in their story when you are meant to be living your own story. When your energy is focused on resenting them, you deplete your own energetic resources and do not have energy to put into your own dreams, goals and aspirations. You have a finite amount of energy. Ask yourself: “Do I want to focus my energy on resenting everyone else’s success or do I want to put that energy into creating my own?” When you spend your time observing what others have and resenting the fact that you do not have it, you set yourself up for failure.
You do not get what you wish someone else didn’t have.
Appreciation brings you more of what you want, and envy ensures you will never get it. When you focus on resenting what others have, you create a vibration of lack. It’s as if you are saying to the universe, “I don’t have this. I need this. I am never going to be good enough to get this.” So, the universe delivers on that sentiment and sends it right back to you as your next experience.
Instead, when you learn to appreciate the success of others, you create a vibration of prosperity, i.e.“I am so happy for you that you got that promotion! I am so glad that things are working out for you! It’s amazing that you have that beautiful beach house.” This vibration of appreciation is translated universally as “I am so happy that promotions are available to me. I am so glad to know that things are always working out for me. It’s amazing that beautiful homes at the beach are available to me.”
The feelings we harbor towards others boomerang back to us.
The universe does not differentiate between you and others—it only reads the vibration of emotion. So, when you put out sentiments of lack, the universe delivers more of the same. It never serves you to indulge in feelings of lack.
If you can’t beat them, join them.
You never get what you want by wishing someone else didn’t have it. Learn to appreciate others’ success and you will get more of your own.
It’s unfortunate that social media has the propensity to trap us into competitive positioning with others, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When you learn that you can use social media to align yourself with the success you are witnessing online, you realize that it can help you achieve your own. Don’t envy others for having what you don’t. Instead, get excited and inspired by their success and know that it’s available to you as well. Practice appreciation of others’ success and those happy, expectant feelings will generate a vibration of prosperity that will boomerang back to you.
Here are three tips to help you practice healthy competition:
- Mind your own business. If you can’t be happy for others, stop stalking them. If their joy isn’t spurning your joy, then your curiosity is only hurting you. Take a digital detox and refocus your energy on being happy. Appreciate all the success you have created so far for yourself. Let the energy of that success be the energy that is sent back to you as your next experience.
- When consumed by disturbing thoughts, stop and think the opposite. When you realize you are having jealous or envious thoughts, consciously stop them in their tracks before they get mirrored back to you. Learn to shut down these thoughts and replace them with an empowering thought. Remember that your thoughts will be sent back to you by the universe, so make sure it’s a thought you want to be experiencing.
- Know that the story you tell yourself makes up the story of your life. Whatever you are telling yourself about your life becomes your life story. What’s the story you want to tell? Is it a story of not being good enough? Is it a story of how everyone else is doing better? Stop reading everyone else’s story and start writing your own. In your life, your story is the only one that matters, so make it a good one. If you are unhappy with it, re-write it until you are happy with it. Competition will cease once you are truly happy with your life.
Based in New York City, Donnalynn is the Author of “Life Lessons, Everything You Ever Wished You Had Learned in Kindergarten.” She is also a Certified Intuitive Life Coach, Inspirational Blogger (etherealwellness.wordpress.com), writer and speaker. Her work has been featured in Glamour, the iHeart Radio Network and Princeton Television. Her website is ethereal-wellness.com. You can follower her on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.
