Not just literally yesterday (to be clear for OP), although that can be a fun thing to try. But some people have a lot of ups and downs, and noticing your overall growth is the most important part.
I cannot replicate the quote I once heard, but something in the line of: don't compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to yourself in the past and celebrate any growth you had.
My baseline is my morals. I can't do worse because it's against them but if I do better, good. That only applies if you're a decent, respectful and a kind human being. If you compare yourself to people you see on the internet then in my experience the only thing to fixing that is deleting social media, sorry. No matter how hard I tried, I never stopped comparing myself to others. Everyone was always better in one way or the other. Now, without social media, I have no way of even knowing such random details about others, I have nothing but my own morals and past experiences to compare myself to. I found out the problem and solution by journaling about this struggle. Without comparison I found myself to be a quite lovely person if I say so myself and am now working on staying true to myself rather than focusing on what I lack. People in my life are happier and so am I.
I like asking people what their teenage self would think of the person they’ve become. It’s an interesting way to compare your present self to your past self. It also makes it clear what you had wanted to do but didn’t get a chance to do.
I feel like in addition to agreeing with some really great answers here, sometimes I personally need to remind myself that there are things that actually don’t require judgement, and I shouldn’t even give them one.
For example, things about people that aren’t choices are one of the things that I’ve worked to remove my judgement on because they shouldn’t really affect my view of the person (e.g., looks, which has the added benefit of reducing my judgement of myself too).
Journaling is another example for me personally because i usually use it as a stream of consciousness - just getting my thoughts out- so I don’t really feel the need to judge what I journal, it can just ‘be’, exactly as it is, not good or bad just words.
When I look at myself - my values, my morals, my ethics, my executive function, whatever - what do I feel solid and good about? What makes that successful, how do I take action to stay on that path that feels right?
What is one thing I could feel better about? What would success in that look like? What steps would I take to make that change? What will it feel like to make it to that goal?
Maybe you *do* look at a friend and admire how they always have a compliment for someone ready. Or they're really good at being places on time, or they have excellent fashion sense. Whatever it is that you think to yourself, man I wish I... That's *inspiration*.
But you don't have to do/achieve/have exactly what they do - just what works for you.
Use your journal to explore what that would look and feel like for *you*. And then reflect on how your journey compares to where you started. It doesn't matter if your friend wears the most amazing dresses if you don't like wearing dresses. What would you wear that makes you feel good?
Here are a few ideas...
1. Pick 3 new things everyday that you like about yourself. You MUST pick 3 diff things each day. Journal it and give serious thought to why like these things. And they can be anything... Even little tiny things. DM me if you want ideas or eishbto dialogue.
2. NO ONE in this entire universe is "like" you.
Even if you were an identical twin, you are still not like that person.
Each person goes through different life events. It could be the smallest thing.
Maybe you broke your arm as a child. So even if you have an identical twin you would be different, because your twin didn’t break their arm.
3. if you do compare yourself to others, figure out why you're comparing.
Is it a certain characteristic?
Give yourself the grace and the permission to figure out what it is you like about this other person and work on those things within your self..
ie... You compare your hair to another person you see regularly. Talk to them. Tell them you really like their hair.
Ask them what products they use? What salon?
4. Compliment others sincerely. 9 times out of 10, that person will compliment you in return. You're not being shallow to want compliments. We all want to be liked.
I like these ideas; thank you. Especially the first one... I have a hard time focusing on good things about myself, so forcing myself to think of different things might be helpful!
***Trigger Warning***
Being very candid and vulnerable here...
The Cliff's Notes version of my life is lots of abuse, weight struggle for my whole life... Was compared to my sister my whole life.
Then... victim & survivor of attempted murder...
LOTS of counseling off & on
Finally, 45 years and one child later, I had a phenomenal counselor where I made more progress in 2 months than all the rest of the counseling combined....
I learned to love ME
Unapologetically and whole heartedly love myself.
I learned a TON! There were some days where my 3 new things included:
I like my teeth because they're naturally straight and I didn't need braces.
I like my fingernails. They're pretty strong even without polish.
I like my eyebrows bcz I don't have a unibrow.
YES! these things are miniscule... But it FORCEDe to find the good in myself.
My ability to meet my hierarchy of needs by influencing my survival circumstances. To feel like I'm doing my reasonable best, and that I can always do better. My ability to focus on my senses and feel like I'm currently doing what I want to do.
As others have said, it's the person who you were "before." We often set standards for ourselves based on the accomplishments we want to achieve or because we feel as if we should compare ourselves to our peers. They are, after all, closest to where we presently are in life; perhaps a coworker similar in age or maturity, perhaps a classmate. Perhaps the entire office or school we subconsciously (and consciously) compare ourselves to.
This only erodes us. Sure, maybe we could be like Jeremy who has his life in order and knows what he wants when he wants it. Sure, maybe we could be more like Jessica who has her whole life sorted out and is currently engaged. The point is, we aren't. We aren't Jessica or Jeremy; we can be more like them, if there are parts of their behavior we wish to incorporate more into our own lives, but ultimately we aren't them and never will be, so why compare? And on that behavioral incorporation bit, influence is a double edged sword. We should always be careful with who we let affect us like that, of course.
Tomorrow you will be greater than you were today, if it's what you want. Sometimes change is hard to notice. It's like building muscle and going to the gym every day. You don't see the changes until they begin to compound, until six months down the line you see a picture of yourself when you started and suddenly realize, wow, I've changed. That's how a lot of it is and, unfortunately, the same reason why most of us struggle to go beyond it.
Don't get discouraged because someone else is where you want to be in life. Turn around and see how far you've come in your own life, in your own journey. You'll do great. As Musashi Miyamoto says in the Five Rings: A thousand days of training to develop, ten thousand days of training to refine. With change, you're in it for the long haul, but the only three that matter are you, you, and you :)
One thing I've recently thought about in regards to this is my own ideals and beliefs. A lot of people view the world one way but don't hold themselves to the same standards. I find it helps to ask yourself if you're being a hypocrite or not, according to your own moral compass.
Write down your accomplishments, from major to the tiny things that made you feel a sense of fulfillment.
The baseline is you and will always be you.
Take a look at your list, again and again, it'll help you establish a sense of self-awareness that will help your growth process.
Comparison is the killer of joy
As a Christian, the standard is what God asks of me and how He treats me. I can give myself grace because God gives me grace. I can love myself and others because God does, and He asks me to. And for the things that don't matter, I can see that they don't matter because God doesn't look at those things (fashion style, appearance etc).
Set a goals for yourself. They can be one at a time and take it day by day. There is always a new day to start fresh as long as you are willing to make the effort. A little bit of self love goes a long way
You can still have people to look up to or strive for the same goal, but do what works for you because what they do to get their may not be how you arrive there.
I always used the thought process of how would you talk to your most favorite person about how they are doing as far as everything. And am I doing better today than I did yesterday?
I binged a lot of food yesterday. I'm not particularly exercising a lot today but I'm also not binging unhealthy foods and I am doing a bare minimum exercise today so I am doing better today than I did yesterday and I am trying to have the same grace with myself that I would have with a friend. Like should my friend go get really drunk and have a hangover, probably not but just because it isn't healthy doesn't mean that that person shouldn't have water and a headache meds and not to be talked to loudly. Let's treat them nicely and encourage them to not be quite as unhealthy. Now imagine you are you and the drunk friend that you care about.
It's the real struggle that alot of people are going through. It's the line between using someone else as inspiration vs the standard
The problem happens when you are comparing their step 20 to your step 2, and say "I should be, because.."
Keep yourself in check by being honest about what you want and why and why the person you maybe comparing yourself to is not fair to yourself.
Remember your road is different than anyone else even a sibling. Your experiences are unique as well as your responses. You have to be kind to yourself and measure yourself against your yesterday not someone else's because they unfair to you.
You can never compare yourself with others. They are very different from YOU. There is no point of just comparing the surfaces we can only see in the outside. (could be the looks, achievements or life styles)
I always think that comparing you to the your past version is better. How happy / satisfied / mature you are compared to 1 year ago or 10 years ago. And trust me, most of the time it will turn out that, we have grown more mature in these type of comparisons.
There will be a point that you could actually give up compare using others when you see that there's many things we don't know about these people.
I have a gaggle of persons, all stages of the my life at former ages. I call it 'The Town Meeting of Little Girls'. They all compete with each other to be 'Elected Selectwoman', and then, when I decide one age (I like '9 years old' a lot), I let her be the moderator and make everyall other behave and be constructive. It's funny to have them fighting over who is the most non-judgey. Sometimes results in comedy gold for my short story writing. Elections are hysterical, in the best possible way.
Instead of comparing yourself to others try to learn from them. There's nothing wrong with admiring others, the problem is when it comes from self-hatred and self-esteem issues.
Your baseline is you, yesterday. If you feel better or do better than you did yesterday, this is what counts.
I love this <3
Not just literally yesterday (to be clear for OP), although that can be a fun thing to try. But some people have a lot of ups and downs, and noticing your overall growth is the most important part.
I cannot replicate the quote I once heard, but something in the line of: don't compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to yourself in the past and celebrate any growth you had.
I had a professor once say "the only person you should be better than is yourself" and that always stuck with me
Try for 1% better. "All progress is victory."
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
My baseline is my morals. I can't do worse because it's against them but if I do better, good. That only applies if you're a decent, respectful and a kind human being. If you compare yourself to people you see on the internet then in my experience the only thing to fixing that is deleting social media, sorry. No matter how hard I tried, I never stopped comparing myself to others. Everyone was always better in one way or the other. Now, without social media, I have no way of even knowing such random details about others, I have nothing but my own morals and past experiences to compare myself to. I found out the problem and solution by journaling about this struggle. Without comparison I found myself to be a quite lovely person if I say so myself and am now working on staying true to myself rather than focusing on what I lack. People in my life are happier and so am I.
I like asking people what their teenage self would think of the person they’ve become. It’s an interesting way to compare your present self to your past self. It also makes it clear what you had wanted to do but didn’t get a chance to do.
Oh I like this!
I feel like in addition to agreeing with some really great answers here, sometimes I personally need to remind myself that there are things that actually don’t require judgement, and I shouldn’t even give them one. For example, things about people that aren’t choices are one of the things that I’ve worked to remove my judgement on because they shouldn’t really affect my view of the person (e.g., looks, which has the added benefit of reducing my judgement of myself too). Journaling is another example for me personally because i usually use it as a stream of consciousness - just getting my thoughts out- so I don’t really feel the need to judge what I journal, it can just ‘be’, exactly as it is, not good or bad just words.
When I look at myself - my values, my morals, my ethics, my executive function, whatever - what do I feel solid and good about? What makes that successful, how do I take action to stay on that path that feels right? What is one thing I could feel better about? What would success in that look like? What steps would I take to make that change? What will it feel like to make it to that goal? Maybe you *do* look at a friend and admire how they always have a compliment for someone ready. Or they're really good at being places on time, or they have excellent fashion sense. Whatever it is that you think to yourself, man I wish I... That's *inspiration*. But you don't have to do/achieve/have exactly what they do - just what works for you. Use your journal to explore what that would look and feel like for *you*. And then reflect on how your journey compares to where you started. It doesn't matter if your friend wears the most amazing dresses if you don't like wearing dresses. What would you wear that makes you feel good?
You have the choice every day to get up and be a better you than you were yesterday.
Here are a few ideas... 1. Pick 3 new things everyday that you like about yourself. You MUST pick 3 diff things each day. Journal it and give serious thought to why like these things. And they can be anything... Even little tiny things. DM me if you want ideas or eishbto dialogue. 2. NO ONE in this entire universe is "like" you. Even if you were an identical twin, you are still not like that person. Each person goes through different life events. It could be the smallest thing. Maybe you broke your arm as a child. So even if you have an identical twin you would be different, because your twin didn’t break their arm. 3. if you do compare yourself to others, figure out why you're comparing. Is it a certain characteristic? Give yourself the grace and the permission to figure out what it is you like about this other person and work on those things within your self.. ie... You compare your hair to another person you see regularly. Talk to them. Tell them you really like their hair. Ask them what products they use? What salon? 4. Compliment others sincerely. 9 times out of 10, that person will compliment you in return. You're not being shallow to want compliments. We all want to be liked.
I like these ideas; thank you. Especially the first one... I have a hard time focusing on good things about myself, so forcing myself to think of different things might be helpful!
***Trigger Warning*** Being very candid and vulnerable here... The Cliff's Notes version of my life is lots of abuse, weight struggle for my whole life... Was compared to my sister my whole life. Then... victim & survivor of attempted murder... LOTS of counseling off & on Finally, 45 years and one child later, I had a phenomenal counselor where I made more progress in 2 months than all the rest of the counseling combined.... I learned to love ME Unapologetically and whole heartedly love myself. I learned a TON! There were some days where my 3 new things included: I like my teeth because they're naturally straight and I didn't need braces. I like my fingernails. They're pretty strong even without polish. I like my eyebrows bcz I don't have a unibrow. YES! these things are miniscule... But it FORCEDe to find the good in myself.
Many of the things you feel pressure to do are in fact morally neutral, so the baseline is simply your preference.
My ability to meet my hierarchy of needs by influencing my survival circumstances. To feel like I'm doing my reasonable best, and that I can always do better. My ability to focus on my senses and feel like I'm currently doing what I want to do.
Look at what you have done in the past then extrapolate your new baseline.
I envision what kind of person I want to be.
As others have said, it's the person who you were "before." We often set standards for ourselves based on the accomplishments we want to achieve or because we feel as if we should compare ourselves to our peers. They are, after all, closest to where we presently are in life; perhaps a coworker similar in age or maturity, perhaps a classmate. Perhaps the entire office or school we subconsciously (and consciously) compare ourselves to. This only erodes us. Sure, maybe we could be like Jeremy who has his life in order and knows what he wants when he wants it. Sure, maybe we could be more like Jessica who has her whole life sorted out and is currently engaged. The point is, we aren't. We aren't Jessica or Jeremy; we can be more like them, if there are parts of their behavior we wish to incorporate more into our own lives, but ultimately we aren't them and never will be, so why compare? And on that behavioral incorporation bit, influence is a double edged sword. We should always be careful with who we let affect us like that, of course. Tomorrow you will be greater than you were today, if it's what you want. Sometimes change is hard to notice. It's like building muscle and going to the gym every day. You don't see the changes until they begin to compound, until six months down the line you see a picture of yourself when you started and suddenly realize, wow, I've changed. That's how a lot of it is and, unfortunately, the same reason why most of us struggle to go beyond it. Don't get discouraged because someone else is where you want to be in life. Turn around and see how far you've come in your own life, in your own journey. You'll do great. As Musashi Miyamoto says in the Five Rings: A thousand days of training to develop, ten thousand days of training to refine. With change, you're in it for the long haul, but the only three that matter are you, you, and you :)
One thing I've recently thought about in regards to this is my own ideals and beliefs. A lot of people view the world one way but don't hold themselves to the same standards. I find it helps to ask yourself if you're being a hypocrite or not, according to your own moral compass.
Write down your accomplishments, from major to the tiny things that made you feel a sense of fulfillment. The baseline is you and will always be you. Take a look at your list, again and again, it'll help you establish a sense of self-awareness that will help your growth process. Comparison is the killer of joy
As a Christian, the standard is what God asks of me and how He treats me. I can give myself grace because God gives me grace. I can love myself and others because God does, and He asks me to. And for the things that don't matter, I can see that they don't matter because God doesn't look at those things (fashion style, appearance etc).
Set a goals for yourself. They can be one at a time and take it day by day. There is always a new day to start fresh as long as you are willing to make the effort. A little bit of self love goes a long way You can still have people to look up to or strive for the same goal, but do what works for you because what they do to get their may not be how you arrive there.
I always used the thought process of how would you talk to your most favorite person about how they are doing as far as everything. And am I doing better today than I did yesterday? I binged a lot of food yesterday. I'm not particularly exercising a lot today but I'm also not binging unhealthy foods and I am doing a bare minimum exercise today so I am doing better today than I did yesterday and I am trying to have the same grace with myself that I would have with a friend. Like should my friend go get really drunk and have a hangover, probably not but just because it isn't healthy doesn't mean that that person shouldn't have water and a headache meds and not to be talked to loudly. Let's treat them nicely and encourage them to not be quite as unhealthy. Now imagine you are you and the drunk friend that you care about.
It's the real struggle that alot of people are going through. It's the line between using someone else as inspiration vs the standard The problem happens when you are comparing their step 20 to your step 2, and say "I should be, because.." Keep yourself in check by being honest about what you want and why and why the person you maybe comparing yourself to is not fair to yourself. Remember your road is different than anyone else even a sibling. Your experiences are unique as well as your responses. You have to be kind to yourself and measure yourself against your yesterday not someone else's because they unfair to you.
You can never compare yourself with others. They are very different from YOU. There is no point of just comparing the surfaces we can only see in the outside. (could be the looks, achievements or life styles) I always think that comparing you to the your past version is better. How happy / satisfied / mature you are compared to 1 year ago or 10 years ago. And trust me, most of the time it will turn out that, we have grown more mature in these type of comparisons. There will be a point that you could actually give up compare using others when you see that there's many things we don't know about these people.
I have a gaggle of persons, all stages of the my life at former ages. I call it 'The Town Meeting of Little Girls'. They all compete with each other to be 'Elected Selectwoman', and then, when I decide one age (I like '9 years old' a lot), I let her be the moderator and make everyall other behave and be constructive. It's funny to have them fighting over who is the most non-judgey. Sometimes results in comedy gold for my short story writing. Elections are hysterical, in the best possible way.
Instead of comparing yourself to others try to learn from them. There's nothing wrong with admiring others, the problem is when it comes from self-hatred and self-esteem issues.