Yousuf Raza – How to stop comparing yourself others
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses how people face pride in their instincts and how it can lead to negative consequences. They stress the importance of recognizing and embracing the natural and social biases of people, and how it can be rewarded. The speaker also emphasizes the need to be aware of biases and avoid negative consequences.
AI: Summary ©
Dr. Yusuf, how do you draw a line
between not comparing yourself with other people?
Like say, if I confide in one of
my friends or she confides with me, how
do we stop this stigma of people face
bigger problems or this problem is not big
enough?
How do we control this?
Okay, see, at the first level it's important
for us to recognize that comparison is natural.
Okay, we are inherently, we have this urge
within us, this instinct, if you will, to
dominate, to be stronger, more powerful, more influential,
smarter, etc., etc.
That's an instinct.
It is ingrained.
Everyone has it.
Okay, first up, let's be very clear on
that recognition.
Step number two, understand that in our entire
lifetime, again, school, college, university, household, that instinct
has been reinforced with comparisons between siblings.
Oh, he's smarter than you.
He's faster than you.
He's brighter than you.
You're not as good as he is.
Comparison with cousins and then comparison within the
classroom.
It just never ends.
It just never ends.
So, whatever instinct that we have, which is
already pretty powerful, is then socially reinforced, strengthened.
So, if you're getting that sense, comparing yourself
to others, and finding yourself to fall short
or not being good enough, first up, stop
beating yourself up.
Why am I harboring these feelings?
I should not have this in my head.
There's a lot of things you shouldn't have
in your head, but you can't control that.
So, you shouldn't have this in your head
that you shouldn't have this in your head.
Does that make sense?
Don't beat yourself up for something which is
instinctual, natural.
Now, what is it that you're going to
make of it?
It is a very good idea.
If you try to fight this, if you
try to say, okay, I am not going
to think about this comparison or how she
is compared to me or how he is
compared to me.
I'm going to stop.
I'm going to stop.
I'm going to stop.
You're not going to be able to do
it.
Okay?
It's a very good idea to replace that
with or just bring in another criteria for
comparison.
Where was I yesterday on this?
I have to compare.
Let me try comparing myself to my yesterday,
to where I was yesterday, and let me
try to facilitate.
If somebody is better off than me in
a particular area and that's causing me an
incredible problem, is there something I can do
to help them become even better?
So their success is at some level my
success, and I am contradicting that instinct.
First, be aware of that instinct.
If that instinct makes you do better yourself,
then that's channeling it in the right direction.
If that instinct leads for you to pull
other people down, and that's an evil channeling
of that instinct, you don't want to do
that.
And we do that in very subtle ways,
in ways that we're not even aware of
a lot of times.
So we want to be very cognizant, conscious,
aware of all of what's going on.
I hope that helps.