Why Comparing Yourself Others. Why Comparing Yourself to Others Isn’t Success When I started my career, I worked in the for-profit education industry. Like any responsible organization, we watched our numbers very closely.
rs very closely. In fact, all of us would get a morning email update called “dailies” which would show our numbers (membership, cancellations, customer satisfaction) in comparison to every other location in the company.
Even on the days when we’d be on top of the list in one measure (rare, given the number of locations) there were tons of other measures we weren’t doing as well on. More often, we weren’t at the top in any measure. Somebody else was always doing better. Over time, intent review of the morning dailies took me away from the more important focus I should have had on the progress our location was making.
It’s easy to compare ourselves to others. I hear this all the time from coaching and training clients that we are working with. Inevitably when I ask them about their progress, the response will start with, “I just don’t feel like I’m as far along as (someone)” and we end up talking about that person more than we do about them.
Many of us measure our success in reference to other people. That’s what our organizations and our society tells us to do. But, there’s a better way.
Earl Nightingale said, “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” I love this definition of success because it’s not just about a destination and it doesn’t ask us to compare ourselves with others. Instead, it challenges us to have a worthy ideal and to make progress in getting there.
So, what should be the two things to focus on when measuring our own success?
- A Worthy Ideal:
- A worthy ideal is a vision of the future that is worthy of our time and effort, makes our lives and the lives of others better, and gives us a target to shoot for.
While it can be tempting to compare ourselves to others in pursuit of a worthy ideal, it’s not the best use of our time. We should instead compare ourselves to our past selves to measure progress.
By doing so, we make continuous improvement rather than trying to be better than someone else.
Do you have a worthy ideal? Have you written it down? Are you comparing yourself to yourself?
To find more information visit Why Comparing Your Success Isn’t Success by CoachingforLeaders.com.
