Comparison Is Killing Our Self-Esteem

Photo by Ozan Çulha from Pexels

I remember one of the first times I compared myself to another girl. I was probably around 4 years old, at Disneyland with my family. I was obsessed with Belle from Beauty and the Beast, the quiet, bookish, brunette Disney princess with whom I identified, so my parents had bought me a fluffy yellow dress just like hers — I was over the moon, prancing around the park in my dress and feeling utterly beautiful. And then, I saw her.

It was another little girl who apparently loved Belle as much as I did. She wore the same dress as me, but she also had on a pair of plastic slipper-heels to go with her gown, the very same shoes my parents hadn’t gotten for me, claiming they’d be “too dangerous” (which was fair, looking back).

I saw her wearing her pretty princess shoes, and my heart sank. She’s got the shoes, I thought to myself. Suddenly, in a single moment, the hop in my step was gone. All that was left was despair, jealousy, and sorrow. Compared to the shoe-clad Belle, I’d fallen short. She was a better princess.

Of course, this was just my first foray into comparison; as I grew older, the list of things I’d compare to other girls grew in number and in depth: their clothes, thigh sizes, the amount of boys interested in them, how many birthday messages they got on Facebook, how clear their skin was, how many people would care (or notice) if they disappeared tomorrow.

More often than not, my own comparison to other girls left me finishing dead last in my mind. I fixated on all that I saw wrong with myself, and all that I saw right with everyone else. My perception of myself, my worth as a human being, nosedived quickly.

As miserable as my comparison left me, it became a habit of mine, a knee-jerk reaction to meeting any new girl ever, my unwitting disposition as I sought a reason to like myself, a way to validate myself. But this relentless comparison to others obliterated my self-esteem.

It’s hard to put into words how low my self-esteem became without sounding self-pitying. I’ll say that it wasn’t a small battle — and to some extent, it’s one that I’m still fighting today. But as a veteran in the war of comparison and low self-esteem, I’ve learned a few things along the way that I hope can help you, too.

There’s enough pie to go around.

The most dangerous thing about living with a mindset of comparison is believing the myth that anyone else’s success, gift, or talent means there’s less for us — as if it’s a pie that we’re all supposed to split. That if someone is fitter or a more eloquent writer or figured out how to run a successful business, their prosperity is somehow taking away from our own ability to prosper, or speaks to their intrinsically higher value.

But whether or not someone else possesses a desirable or admirable quality has no bearing whatsoever on what we possess — what gifts we have to cultivate and purpose we have to realize and the value we inherently have. The pie of accomplishment, contentment, worth, and good fortune isn’t finite.

Comparing yourself to someone you’ll never be is fruitless.

We think of comparison as simply measuring ourselves — as weighing and examining where we come up short against someone else, whether in looks, status, or intelligence. If we find ourselves to be lacking when pitted against the object of our comparison, we take this to mean that we’re failing to be the best version of ourselves.

But in reality, we’re just “failing” to be someone else entirely — not ourselves or any version of ourselves. Understanding comparison this way was a wake up call for me: all comparison is, is punishing ourselves for not being what we perceive as the best version of someone else, quite literally.

Comparing ourselves to someone else, particularly who has something we value or long for, won’t ever leave us truly satisfied with our findings, because we can’t fairly analyze evaluate ourselves against someone we weren’t even created to be.

Compare yourself today with who you were yesterday.

At the heart of comparison is a desire to be better than we currently are — and this is actually a desire that’s worth listening to. We intrinsically know that we ought to live with a devotion to evolving into someone greater than we are now. Whether or not we’re totally aware, we live with a knowledge that we were created in God’s image, and therefore with a deep purpose, a need to become better.

When we pour every ounce of energy into comparing who we are today against the rest of the world, we’ll only cloud our ability to comprehend the reality of our personal growth, gifts, and accomplishments.

We ought want to be better, more intelligent, greater in wisdom, more loving, or more driven than we were yesterday. We are only on our own path, with our own unique capacity, purpose, and offering — and therefore, we improve by measuring ourselves against the person we were yesterday, and against who our Creator made us to be.

In short…

Our inherent value stands on its own. Comparing what we perceive as valuable about ourselves with what we perceive to be valuable about someone else will only poison our self-esteem and leave us feeling miserable and less-than as we attempt to be the best version of someone else.

You were created with a unique beauty, personality, and purpose — so be your own best self, not someone else’s.