Comparing Yourself to Others, The Folly Of Selfies

Man, they appear to be doing so well. What’s wrong with me?”

This is a pretty common thought to a lot of people.

You may see somebody in a bigger house than you have… then look at your own and wonder what went wrong. You may see somebody else with a nicer car and wonder why you’re driving around such an average vehicle. Or, let’s make this even more common…

You’re scrolling through Facebook and seeing pictures of people’s parties, their vacations, their fancy meals. They seem to be living the high life. What’s wrong with YOU?

It has actually been proven through experiment that such use of social media actually helps further depression. People are unhappier due to social media, in a lot of cases. On top of the comparisons, it doesn’t help one bit that social media is being used these days to divide people and stir them up. But, that’s another discussion…

But, if you’re the kind who makes a habit of comparing yourself to others, then you’re more likely to find unhappiness breeding in you when you are active on social media.

But, let’s bring this back into the world of online business…

When you want to make money online, one of the first things you often do is search the internet for how to make money online, or how to make money blogging. And you come across people who are talking about it. And often they talk about how much money they make.

Pat Flynn, from Smart Passive Income, publicly posts his monthly income reports. It is a popular feature of his site, and many others have done the same. I actually used to do the same thing, but have long since stopped. Why is that?

… because I believe it leads people into making comparisons between themselves and me, or themselves and Pat – or whoever.

You get inspired by the money, then the next move is to try to do what they have done instead of charting your own path. Instead of doing what you need to do, you’re instead left trying to copy somebody else. And if you don’t get the forward movement, it is pretty deflating.

Plus, income reports put the emphasis on the income and not what actually creates that income… which is delivering value to others.

Comparing yourself to others will almost naturally lead to an attitude of “lack”. Your attention and your focus is on what you DON’T have. And you will inevitably get more of what you focus on.

The ironic thing is that, most of the time, these comparisons are based on an outright LIE.