How to Avoid the Comparison Trap

We’ve all seen achievers of all sorts in our lives. Maybe your classmate ran a bake sale that raised hundreds of dollars for charity. Maybe your friend seemed to make ten new friends the minute he entered a room full of strangers. Perhaps the girl you haven’t talked to a lot always volunteers at every single opportunity. The list goes on.

Instead of feeling inspired by them, you feel their achievements put yours to shame. You feel that no matter what you do, you will never live up to them.

That was me, and it has happened so many times I’ve lost count. In my school, the popular kids are the ones who excel academically, are involved in school activities, and by extension, are incredibly outgoing and extroverted. They are the kind of teens that parents tell their children to be more like.

Thankfully, my parents are not like that, but I still compare myself all the same. I am far from outgoing; in fact, I am quite shy and reserved. I’m content with smaller social circles. I have reasonably good grades, and I do my best on school assignments. But I started to wonder if I’m involved enough in school activities. Was I as involved as my friends and successful peers?

I’ve watched my peers act in the school’s annual play, where the set design, the choreography, and the performances are well beyond my expectations. I’ve watched my peers run clubs (and occasionally start them), win sporting events, get their pictures in yearbooks, and even run for student prime minister. So many of my peers do pretty much everything, which makes me feel like I’m doing nothing.

It felt like I was always falling short of some standard, no matter how hard I tried, while others were constantly exceeding it without breaking a sweat.

It made me feel like I was lazy and unambitious. And it doesn’t help when so many well-intentioned quotes on the internet tell you to “dream big,” or “never settle for less,” or that “life is short.” But what ultimately did help was that I found a name for this feeling: the comparison trap. (Ooh, scary!) What helped me even more was learning about the comparison trap.

The truth is, everyone has fallen into “the trap” at least once. As I mentioned before, I’ve fallen into it more times than I can count over the years, and every time, it’s always a dreadful feeling. Thankfully, there are ways to avoid falling into the trap, but I want to share with you the simplest yet most profound one.

Just take a deep breath.

Let me reiterate: Pause and take a deep breath.

It’s that simple! When we compare, it becomes hard to think clearly and put things into perspective because all these feelings of inadequacy and uselessness are clouding your mind. But if you take a deep breath when you’re in the comparison trap, you throw a wrench into those feelings, keeping your mind clear, and from there, everything else becomes clear.

For starters, you see all your achievements in all their glory, without being subject to comparison. For example, I distinctly remember the time I was tutoring some seventh graders on playing the flute, and outside the band room, I saw my peers preparing for a haunted house event. I remember thinking, “Look how much fun they are having! Meanwhile, I’m just teaching a bunch of kids music. I feel so lame!”

But when I took a deep breath to calm myself, I saw my volunteer work with fresh eyes. I realized I wasn’t “just teaching a bunch of kids music.” I was teaching them the wonderful joy of music. I was sharing my passion for music with these students, in the hopes of inspiring them to pursue it in high school. On top of that, being a music tutor is a privilege given to only a handful of skilled band members, like me. Yes, there are drama students preparing for the haunted house, but so what? I may not be doing that, but they are not tutoring elementary students!

You have so many talents and successes that many admire and even envy, yet when you compare, you miss all of that. But if you pause, the truth will stare you in the face.

Taking a deep breath puts things into perspective, since we forget we don’t always know the full story.

I guarantee you that the classmate who ran the successful bake sale had many previous sales that barely raised over ten dollars. Maybe your outgoing friend might’ve been silently struggling with years of social anxiety and is just now coming out of his shell and finding his courage. Perhaps that girl who is always volunteering is shouldering the pressure to meet her parents’ sky-high expectations.

Who knows? But one thing is for sure: At the end of the day, nobody is perfect. No one succeeds on the first try every time. But when we are caught in the comparison trap, we don’t realize that. We get so overwhelmed by our own feelings it never occurs to us that other people are going through the same thing too.

Last but not least, taking a deep breath forces you to see the comparison trap as what it is: a waste of time. Sometimes we think comparing is inspiring us to do more, or that we are admiring those we are comparing ourselves to, when that’s far from the truth. Inspiration, admiration, whatever we call it, does not involve putting down or criticizing yourself.

Never forget that we are all on our own paths. Sometimes, we share our paths with others and form relationships. But our journeys are our own. No one can take it for us, and we cannot take another person’s journey. So, there is no use in comparing ourselves.

Never feel guilty or ashamed whenever you find yourself in the comparison trap. Remember, everyone falls into it at one point, including me. What matters is that you take a deep breath and become aware of the trap so that you can escape it.

And one last thing: There is only one person you should compare yourself to… and that’s you.