Yousuf Raza – How to stop comparing yourself others

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.