I saw a quote yesterday that said, “Confidence isn’t walking into a room thinking you’re better than everyone; it’s walking in and not having to compare yourself to anyone at all.” So true, isn’t it? I thought it made for a great discussion!
Confident People Don’t Compare Themselves to Others
It’s a human tendency to want to compare ourselves to others. As with all of our stranger impulses, I’m pretty sure it has something to do with our early days when we had to outrun giant tigers. Like, it’s some sort of survival instinct. We probably looked over at our neighbor’s cave and thought, “Well crud, they have a bigger boulder blocking the entrance than we do, so we’re going to get eaten first!”
In today’s world, we don’t really need to compare ourselves to others to survive. In fact, I think that we’re actually making it harder to live happy and healthy lives. We often look at someone else’s success, looks, or accomplishments and feel like we don’t measure up. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, and low self-esteem. But truly confident people don’t fall into this trap because they simply refuse to compare themselves to others.
Comparing yourself to others is a recipe for unhappiness
Look, this may be a hard truth to hear, but while you may sometimes be the smartest person in the room, you’ll probably never be the smartest person in the history of the world. As of right now, the person with the highest IQ ever recorded lived nearly a century ago. NO ONE has beaten him since.
There will probably always be someone out there who is more “successful,” more “accomplished,” and yes, even “better looking.” I put all of those in quotations because they’re all completely subjective. Using those traits as a “measuring stick” of your own talents or appearance doesn’t really make sense.
The point is, though, if you’re constantly comparing yourself to others, you’ll never be satisfied with what you have. Confident people know that true happiness comes from within, and they focus on cultivating a positive mindset and outlook.
Confidence is also understanding that it’s okay to be angry, sad, or scared
Yes, confident people try to stay positive as much as possible. But they also understand that life isn’t all rainbows and sunshine all of the time. They recognize that truly living sometimes means experiencing pain and sorrow.
More importantly, they know that it’s okay to express that pain and sorrow. They don’t compare their hard times to that of others. Too often, we bottle up our emotions not because we don’t want to express them but because we don’t feel like we have a right to do so. We compare our challenges to others and think things like, “I have no right to be sad about my dog dying when Barb’s mom just died,” or “I have no business crying over my broken foot when Betty has a broken back.”
Your pain is just as valid and, well, painful as mine and vice-versa. Confidence is about recognizing that and allowing yourself to just feel. It’s also about knowing when to ask for help when those feelings get overwhelming.
Everyone is on a unique path so focus on YOUR journey
Truly confident people know that each and every one of us is unique. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. You’re never going to be great at every single thing. At the same time, though, there are so many things that you do excel at.
It’s also not really fair to judge your abilities against someone else’s because you have no idea how they got there. Maybe their path was easier than yours because they had more resources. For example, everyone points at the guy who owns Amazon as being a huge success and compares their worth (literally and figuratively) against his. But his parents gave him a lot of his startup money.
Confident people focus on their own progress and growth rather than someone else’s. They follow their unique path and recognize that constantly judging their progress by someone else’s journey will only distract them from their own journey. They also recognize that every single day is a new day to create the future of their dreams.
Confidence is knowing that no one can compete with you
Confident people are secure in who they are. They don’t need external validation or approval to feel good about themselves. They know their own worth, and they don’t measure it against anyone else’s. Since they don’t bother to compete with others, no one can compete with them! Think about it, if you’re the only one in the race you’re guaranteed to win!
Confident people don’t need to brag about it
I just want to share one more quote before we say goodbye for today. It goes, “Watch out for people who are always bragging about who they are, a lion will never have to tell me it’s a lion.” When someone constantly brags about their successes, it doesn’t scream “confidence” to me. Actually, quite the opposite. It feels like those people are looking for validation, which is really just another way of comparing yourself to others.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t share your accomplishments, or that you shouldn’t be proud of your achievements. It just means that you shouldn’t feel like you have to tell the whole world AND get a ton of “kudos” from others in order to feel like you’ve succeeded.
The bottom line is, confidence isn’t about trying to be better than someone else. It’s about being happy and secure with who you are, and about following your own journey. You will never find happiness if you spend your entire life trying to compare yourself to others. Just live your own life, chase your own dreams, and find your own bliss. If you need someone to compare yourself to, make it yourself. Compare where you are with where you want to be. If you’re not there yet, then do what you need to do to get yourself moving.
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