𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐎 𝐏𝐔𝐓 𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐉𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐘 𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐀𝐋𝐋.
"How nice is it to know that you are never ever in competition with anyone but yourself? No one could ever occupy the same space as you, emit the same energy as you, shine your exact life experience. I love knowing that the more truly me I become, the better everything becomes." - Dove Cameron
Introduction
This may be the first of a few posts related to rearranging your mindset specifically pertaining to confidence, so I won’t be covering everything in this one post about how to acquire absolute self love and whatnot. For now, we’ll just focus on jealousy and more specifically the feeling of inadequacy. Before we start, I’d like to quickly provide the definition of jealousy: Jealousy is the feeling of discontent due to the possessions, characteristics or merits of another. It comes from a place of lack because it is the understanding that you are missing something, which consequently harbors insecurity and self-doubt. I understand, it’s hard to be confident in oneself when you’re bombarded with milestone culture and beauty standards that constantly dictate what you should look like and what your life should be like; And when you’re constantly surrounded by people who embody those standards, it’s easy to believe that there’s something inherently wrong with you for not living up to them. I was once in that position, but I’ll touch on that later on. The first half will discuss changing the way you see others and the second will discuss changing how you see yourself (and my experience doing that). Without further ado, these are the mindset adjustments that I implemented into my life that helped me stop feeling inferior to anyone else.
No envy, just inspiration.
Instead of focusing on the fact that they are something you are not, start seeing people as motivation for what you aim to be. Other people are and should be seen as sources of inspiration because they are testaments to the reality of your aspirations. It doesn’t matter what the goal is, whether you want to be a top student or have your dream body, it is achievable and the decision to acquire it will always depend on you. Stop downplaying your capacity. If they can, why can’t you? What makes them more capable than you? The only difference between you and them is your mentality and the diligence to go after what you want.
People are only what we know about them.
It’s easy to be jealous of someone - such as an influencer, for example - when all you see from them is the good parts of their life. You may think to yourself that you’d give anything to switch lives with another when the truth is everyone always has something going on behind closed doors. You see people for everything you want to have, do and be but it’s also important to remember that we only see people for what they choose to share with the world.
Compare yourself to others… the right way
If you’re going to compare yourself to another person, do it in a way that puts you on the pedestal. Instead of dwelling on what somebody else has that you don’t, switch the narrative into thinking about what you have that others don’t. It’s so easy to make list of everything you wish you had, but have you ever stopped to consider what you have that they don’t? Maybe they have your dream body, but they don’t have a contagiously endearing smile like yours. You may not have a captivating relationship like they do, but you have a best friend who loves and supports you unconditionally. They’re gifted at math, but they’re not as skilled at drawing as you are. Maybe you don’t have any of the previously mentioned qualities, but there will always always be something about yourself worth appreciating that they do not have. You’re so fixated on what’s missing in your life that you tend to forget about what isn’t. Picking up this habit will take away the feeling of lack because you’re remembering all that is in your possession right now and not only will it take your mind off of that but it’ll also feel reassuring to know that you aren’t below somebody else after all. Instead of letting them be the standard, you become the standard, which brings me to my next point:
Live by your own standards
I cannot emphasize how important it is to set your own standards and live by them. Socially, you will be told that matters such as beauty and success look a certain way and any deviation from it is undesirable. Why should you live your life according to somebody else’s rules or standards? Your perception of what it means to be beautiful or successful will never be exactly the same as somebody else’s, so it’s nonsensical to force yourself into a mold that wasn’t made for you in the first place. Humanity is not a monolith. Success, fulfillment, happiness and beauty are all relative. What one person regards as success is failure to another, what someone considers to be the epitome of beauty might be completely unappealing to another. Do not allow another person to impose what their ideal definition of any of these concepts is unto you. Your perception is the only one that matters and you are the one who gets to dictate what the standard for yourself should be.
Your greatest competition and your worst enemy - yourself
This is the part where I talk about my experience with jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. I was once an incredibly anxious person who always felt like she was “behind” in comparison to everyone else. I would constantly compare my life to everyone else’s and feel guilty because I hadn’t accomplished as much as them. One day, I had the most enlightening epiphany: I realized that the only person who was imposing these expectations and pressure on myself was none other than my very self. Nobody in my life was telling me that I had to be doing this and that, it was always me who set that standard up because of what I heard elsewhere and as a result I was practically my own enemy. I never stopped to ask myself why that was a standard I chose to satisfy in the first place and because of that, I unintentionally created so much unnecessary stress for myself.
We constantly worry about what the correct way to live, be or do something is and what abiding by otherwise suggests about us but as it turns out, in the end it’s only you who will hold yourself to that. Other people are busy living in their own worlds, pursuing their goals, or even struggling mentally comparing themselves to the next person and we don’t even know it because we are too clouded by our own judgment to realize that. I was my own obstacle and my own bully. The only person who cared about what I was and wasn’t doing was myself and I wish I had realized this earlier because the moment I did I finally let go of that pressure. I learned that there is no correct way to succeed and as long as I was moving forward, the rate at which I progressed would never matter.
Sometimes you are your own worst enemy and you need to be the one to call yourself out for it. Entertaining imaginary one-sided competitions and enforcing baseless expectations will only impose frustration on yourself. If I could give my old self some words of advice, this is what I would say to her: Be more kind to yourself and make your life a little easier by not getting in your own way. You’re the one person who will always be by your side at any point in your life. Have your own back, be your biggest supporter and your own best friend. Appreciate yourself more and give yourself more credit for how far you’ve come. Take it one day at a time and trust yourself because success does not have a fixed trajectory.
Your new mentality
When I had my epiphany and chose to switch the comparison narrative around, I started to truly change how I saw myself and what my thoughts looked like in respects. In the present day, my mentality is that I live my life for myself only and I have zero interest in living up to anybody else’s standards and expectations but my own. I don’t care about what anyone else is doing because I am my biggest priority and my attention is exclusively directed towards my ambitions. Upon appropriating this mindset, I completely let go of that old version of me and never looked back. It’s been one of the best personal decisions I have ever made and I hope this encourages you to do the same out of love for yourself as well.
Take a deep breath and relax, this is your life. Only your goals and who you aspire to be matters. Stop living by others’ rules and start living by your own. Become so fixated on yourself that you can’t be bothered to care about what anybody else is doing or saying. Put yourself first and do whatever it takes to preserve your peace of mind. Stay away from people who actively make you feel inferior and delete social media if it’s distorting your expectations and standards. Whatever means are necessary but take yourself out of situations that make you feel less than others and start shifting your mindset into one that sees you as a winner.
Final words
Only you get to decide if you’ve had enough of feeling like you’re not enough. Implement and think about what I wrote in this post. Live by it until it feels so natural to you that the idea of being jealous of another feels unbelievably silly (because it is)! The longer you sustain this state of mind the sooner you’ll be at peace mentally. I leave you with a final reminder:
It is never too late to become the person you have always dreamt of being. Find inspiration in other people, establish your goals and do what it takes to achieve every single one of them. Do it for nobody else but you. Be so loyal to the dream version of you that it inevitably materializes before your eyes. You are infinitely greater than you think you are. The world is far too grand and your life is full of too much potential for you to allow yourself to be suppressed by the expectations of others and the fictional competition you have placed upon yourself with another. There is nothing in this world that you cannot have, do or be and the only person you should be competing with is yourself. Every day is a new opportunity to be better than who you were yesterday. You’re not running out of time because your path is your own. Nobody could ever come close to imitating the excellence that is you and nobody ever will, that will always be your greatest blessing and your greatest brag.
