40. “Comparison” is the first step to unhappiness.

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset, the channel for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible in life. Today’s topic is comparison. You probably know the feeling of comparing yourself to others from time to time—to friends or even distant acquaintances. I think it’s not uncommon to constantly feel like you’re in competition with others. The problem with comparison is that while there’s a positive side—comparing yourself to improve—there’s also a huge negative side: when you start comparing yourself to others and become unhappy with your current situation.

I admit it myself, I compare myself to others now and then, but I know perfectly well, mindset-wise, that comparison is practically the first step to unhappiness. What I mean by that is, I have an acquaintance who recently told me that, well, when he looks at his circle of friends, he has quite a few friends who already own their own homes and are quite far along in their careers. He also assumes they earn a decent amount of money, and he himself feels he’s not as well off as they are.

Prioritizing career and family differently

Then, around the same time, another friend told me that he wasn’t sure how to proceed career-wise. He has certain colleagues at work who, to put it kindly, have advanced within the company and are working hard, but he thinks, or rather, he’s quite certain, that his skillset is far superior. However, he simply doesn’t have the time to advance his career because he prioritizes other things, like his family, his friends, his children, and so on.

I think both stories have one thing in common: they’re about comparison. You look at where your colleague is, where your friend is, where your girlfriend is, and you look at where you see yourself in life. And then you see yourself, or compare yourself, into your own unhappiness. I think comparison isn’t all that unusual, but the problem, as I just mentioned, is that we all have different contexts in life. What I mean by that is, we have different circumstances.

One person has a family and two children, for example, and naturally wants to invest time in them, while another might also have this, but invest much less time in their children and therefore has more time to invest in a career, for instance. And so, unfortunately, it’s a fact that whoever invests more time in their career, whether effectively or not, will actually get further in the long run. I think this fact is very often completely underestimated.

Consider your own starting point

So, what kind of context are we in right now? Are we starting from the same point, or is the other person I’m comparing myself to much further along than I am? This is just my first step, and the other person has already invested ten years in a certain thing, in a certain topic. You can’t really compare yourself to someone who has spent much more time or is simply much further along with a topic than you are.

There’s a really nice English quote by Tim Hiller that says, “Don’t compare your beginning to someone else ‘s middle.” And I completely agree. For example, I have a very clear example from my own experience. When I started podcasting, I thought to myself, or rather, I watched other podcasts and then realized, wow, they’re incredibly advanced in what they’re doing—something that only occurred to me later. Of course, they’ve been doing it for five years already.

Define success for yourself

They must be much further along than I am, and I have to invest a corresponding amount of time if I want to get as far as they do. That means I can’t compare my first steps in podcasting with someone who’s been podcasting for five years. And that’s another problem, too. I think many people compare themselves to others, but they have different goals in life or define success very differently. What I mean by that is, for me, success, very broadly speaking, is a combination of factors like: what kind of balance do I have in my life, how grateful I am for the things I do, and can I manage most of my time—not all of it, but most of it—myself.

That’s a rough definition of success for me. I think I’ll do a separate podcast episode on defining success, but for me, it’s really about balance in life. That means I can dedicate enough time to things that are important to me, to hobbies, and I have enough time for my family—my wife, my children, my parents, and so on. I find this balance extremely important because I know perfectly well that if I put 100 percent into one thing, other things that are important to me will suffer.

Gratitude and self-determined time

The topic of gratitude also comes up: Am I truly grateful for the things I have in life? There’s a saying that goes something like this: If you’re not happy with the coffee you’ve made yourself, then you won’t be happy with your own coffee in your own Lamborghini either. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. So, gratitude is extremely important to me, as is the question of how I manage my time. I have complete control over how and where I invest my time.

Most of the time, we’re largely controlled by external factors. I’m sure you know what I mean. Certain people in our lives might influence our time, whether it’s our employer or other individuals. For me, it’s about being able to manage my own time for the most part—not completely, but for the most part. These are my goals, and this is how I define success. Now, it’s possible, of course, that my colleague—to use one of my acquaintances as an example—defines success or happiness differently than I do.

Respect different goals

Perhaps his happiness lies in being able to dedicate as much time and energy as possible to his work or his chosen subject. Perhaps he doesn’t even consider it a priority to spend enough time with family and friends. And I don’t mean that in a judgmental way at all. There are people, and quite a few of them, in fact. There are people who aren’t so interested in cultivating friendships. They aren’t so interested in spending a lot of time with their families.

And this isn’t meant to be judgmental. They simply have different definitions of what’s important to them. And then, of course, it’s no wonder that this person invests a lot of time in their work, their hobby, or whatever it may be, and consequently gets much further. So how can I, as a person, compare myself to this person when I have a completely different context, when I have completely different people around me, because it’s important to me that I spend enough time with my parents, that I help them when they need it?

That’s my baggage; my context is simply completely different than with someone who has entirely different goals in life. Of course, I also make sure I always have my mindset tools ready when I catch myself comparing myself to others and applying for jobs, and I’ve told my acquaintances about this as well. I think the very first thing that’s important is to understand that you’re actually comparing yourself. That means there’s a statement behind it. Oh, careful, Reza, I’m comparing myself to other people again.

Question your own comparative thoughts

That’s the first step to unhappiness. Then, of course, the second step is understanding. It’s difficult to simply map out your thoughts; rather, you have to reflect on your thoughts themselves. Why do I have these thoughts? And then, providing that context, how do I define success in the second step? Am I currently on the path to what’s important to me, or am I not? But I most likely have a different definition of success than, for example, my colleague at work.

Then, in the next step, I also look at why I envy the other person. To stay in the context of work, for example, he has more knowledge in a particular area, and I simply haven’t invested enough time in that area to acquire the same level of knowledge. Or, for instance, there’s my acquaintance who said that all his friends and acquaintances already own houses and are all very far along in their careers. So, why haven’t I, for example, taken care of acquiring a house, secured my own property, so that I could buy it?

From envy to taking action

What can I do to prevent this from happening? And then don’t dwell on it, like, “Wow, this is all taking forever.” Yes, that’s just how life is. Everything takes a while to get where you want to be. But I think it’s really important to understand why I’m envious of this other person right now. And you mustn’t forget that just because something looks beautiful or good from the outside, or even very progressive, doesn’t mean it actually is.

Perhaps the other person bought a house, a property, but has enormous debts, is having problems because the attic still needs to be converted, and can’t sleep at night. And I actually know of cases like that because the monthly payment is so high. So just because something looks good on the outside doesn’t mean there’s anything great on the inside. The same goes for careers. I talked about that in an earlier podcast episode. I had an acquaintance at work who was quite knowledgeable in his field.

What might lie behind professional success

I have to admit, I envy him his expertise. He also had a pretty good car, quite advanced in that department. And I thought to myself, wow, that’s impressive, I’d really like to be there someday. Then we were in a meeting and my colleague at the time answered the phone. I found it a bit, let’s just say, rude, to suddenly drop in on personal matters in a meeting like that. But okay, it was his wife, and they talked, and they spoke to each other in such a harsh tone that I thought, wow, that’s intense.

I certainly don’t want to spend my private time with my wife like that. They just hung up without saying goodbye, the whole nine yards. I found that extreme. Yes, I would find that extremely unsatisfying for myself. And then I finally understood, hey, maybe he has completely different goals in life than I do. Perhaps that’s not so important to him. I mean, to speak kindly of his partner, but rather, what’s important to him right now is to continue accumulating expertise, because that’s his goal in life.

Use comparisons as a positive incentive

That means if I compare myself here, I’d only be comparing one aspect. I can’t compare my whole life to his because we have completely different goals. There’s another thing you can compare, which is also honestly good, and that’s developing a healthy dose of envy. For me, healthy envy means saying, for example, “Okay, this person is much further along than me in this area.” And I take that as motivation to develop myself further in that area, but within the context of my own life, within the context of my goals, within the context of what’s important to me, because I prioritize my life differently.

Exactly, and for me personally, these are the main tools I use when I actually compare myself to someone else. I try to analyze why I do it; first, I acknowledge that I’m even doing this comparison, then I try to analyze the context in which I define my success, why I envy someone else, and whether I can perhaps gain something positive from this envy, for example, by saying that I’ll take it as motivation to improve in this area.

Important people in one’s life

What I do know for sure, though, is that when I think about my life now, I have a completely different set of people in tow, people I naturally want to bring along. So, if I want to develop further, I also want to bring my four or five important people in my life—maybe it’s a few more, but they are the important people in my life—with me. That means my set of people is completely different from, for example, someone who’s been around on Mondays, and I remember that from my previous consulting work on projects.

Some of my colleagues would arrive at their projects on Mondays and not return until Friday. During that time, they wouldn’t see their children or their families. If that’s their goal in life, then that’s perfectly fine. But it’s not my goal. I have a completely different set of people to take with me. That’s why I can’t relate to the success of someone who’s completely away from their family for five days straight; they pay a completely different price for it.

I simply can’t compare myself to him. So, you see, I think the idea of ​​comparing yourself to others is something a lot of people think about. And that’s perfectly normal. I think especially in the age of social media, it’s incredibly easy to showcase your highlights, to show off, “Hey, yeah, things are going well for me, everything’s great.” But every story has two sides. There’s always light and shadow. And I’m fully aware of that now.

Even the invisible difficulties are visible

Hardly anyone, let’s say, publicly displays their lowlights. I do it occasionally here in the podcast because, of course, I want to show you that lowlights exist, but I think very few people actually share them. And yes, I would simply ask you, if you do compare yourself to others, to do so in a positive way. That means, simply use comparisons as motivation to improve in certain areas. But be fully aware of this.

Comparison is truly the first step to unhappiness. And you simply have a completely different context. You have a different history. Plus, you have different people around you. You simply define success differently. And you really have to be aware of that. Because everything in life has its price. I’ve noticed that myself in recent years. If I invest more in one thing, it’s only natural that I have less time for something else. That’s just the way it is. There are 24 hours in a day.

Every priority has its price.

I can only invest x hours in, for example, work. I can only invest y hours in my family. And then I can invest the difference in other areas. Everything comes at a price, which we’ll see sooner or later. Great, everyone, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. As always, I try to keep Project Mindset relatively short. Today’s topic was comparison. I hope you understood what I meant by comparing yourself to others—ideally, you should only do it to extract positive things, to have some motivation.

But I think it’s perfectly human to compare ourselves to others. I hope we talk again soon. And until next time. Don’t forget, mindset is everything.