What Happens When You Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People?

He was one of the most gifted photographers I had ever met. So, when he admitted to me that he often struggled with self-doubt and questioned his own abilities, I was shocked. His talent seemed so obvious to me. He was doing something I knew I couldn’t do. While my own photography skills were limited to pointing my phone at an object and pressing the little white circle, he was a professional photographer.

But therein lies the problem. He was in a world filled with great photographers and graphic designers. When he viewed his own work, he wasn’t comparing it to my blurry photos of my kids squinting in the sun that I captured on my phone; he was comparing it to the best of the best.

But as much as I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to compare himself to other professional photographers, I couldn’t. Because I knew that I did the same thing with my own work.

When my photographer friend had told me that he thought it was incredible that I was writing a book, I had the exact same surprised reaction. Writing books is so commonplace in my world as an academic that I didn’t see it as something unique or special. My friend was comparing me to the people in his world who hadn’t written any books, but I was comparing myself to the people I knew who had written dozens of books.

The problem wasn’t our work; the problem was with how we were thinking about our work. We were getting trapped in our own little bubbles. And when we get trapped in our bubbles, we tend to only compare ourselves to the other people within our bubble. We spend a lot of time looking around at the other people who are doing the same thing we’re doing, whether it’s our jobs or our parenting or even our faith. And if we compare ourselves to enough people in our bubble, we’re bound to find people who seem to be doing things better than we are. They’ve won more awards or have better-behaved kids or seem more put together than we feel.

When we focus on the differences between the things we’re doing and the things people around us are doing, it keeps us from seeing the value of the things we are all doing. We only see the ways in which we’re doing slightly better than some people and not measuring up to others. When we look at differences among people doing the same thing, we see things incrementally.

But when we get out of our bubbles and look at what we’re doing from a different perspective, it’s easier to see the value and purpose in what we are doing. It’s easier to see why we’re doing it in the first place. When I look at my friend’s print hanging on my kitchen wall, I don’t think about the fact that he hasn’t won as many awards as other photographers he knows; I think about how much I like the picture. I think about the sense of awe I feel when looking at the giant waves crashing into the pier. When I look at his work, I’m not comparing it to other photos; I’m just enjoying it for its own sake.

When we can look at our role from the perspective of someone who benefits from what we’re doing, we can see that it doesn’t matter so much if we’re not doing our thing as much or as well as someone else. What matters is that we’re doing our thing at all. We’re creating beauty, expressing our creativity, teaching, sharing, feeding, restoring. We’re being courageous enough to show up and add something to the world. And that’s something worth celebrating. 

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Also published on Medium.