Everyone who spends their spare time comparing themselves to others — friends, exes, the daughter of your mum’s friend, potential threats you made up in your head — please rise.

Perfect. I’m standing too.

I have a very active inner voice whose favourite pastime is comparing everything I do, look like, or feel to how other people are doing it. Especially if those people happen to be skinny, pretty, confident, and seemingly winning at life. After a solid round of comparison, I usually move on to analysing myself piece by piece — deciding which parts of me are acceptable (because clearly, winning) and which ones should probably be eliminated (because clearly, losing). I then wrap it all up with a calm and logical conclusion: I’m insane.

If this sounds even remotely familiar, keep reading — because there is a way out of this.

Is this one of the worst things you can do to yourself?

Comparison isn’t inherently bad. In small doses, it can offer perspective or even motivation. But when it becomes a habit — especially around appearance, success, or worth — it slowly eats away at your sense of self. Research consistently shows that frequent social comparison is linked to lower life satisfaction, increased stress, and diminished happiness. And social media doesn’t help. It feeds us curated, polished fragments of other people’s lives and invites us to measure ourselves against them — constantly. You might think it doesn’t affect you. If you want proof, stay off social media for five days and notice how differently you feel about yourself.

How can I stop comparing myself to others and feel “good enough”?

One day, scrolling Instagram as one does, I came across a video of Cardi B — filmed right after she’d been cheated on — saying something along the lines of: “Anyway, there’s no one better than me.” I don’t know if she meant it, believed it, or just needed to hear it herself. But something clicked.

The reality is this: there are billions of people on this planet, and not one of them has your exact combination of mind, body, personality, history, and soul. Yes, someone might have the same job. Someone else might look eerily similar to you. Someone might even share your talents. But no one carries the same mix of experiences, energy, flaws, strengths, and perspective that you do.

Introducing breaking news

The reason someone is drawn to you is the fact that they like or love the COMBINATION of the things that make up who you are!  We tend to reduce ourselves to single traits — our body, our intelligence, our productivity, our confidence — and then compare those isolated pieces to others. But that’s not how attraction, connection, or value actually works. People are never drawn to just one thing. They’re drawn to combinations.

Think about it this way: no one eats two kilos of plain butter. And no one eats two kilos of butter with one slice of bread either. People like a specific amount of butter with a specific amount of bread. It’s the combination that works. Humans are the same. People are drawn to you as a whole — not to individual traits in isolation.

So when you compare yourself to others, ask yourself: by which measurement? Using whose values? With what context? You cannot fairly compare two entirely different combinations and declare one “better” or “worse.”

Preferences exist — of course they do. Someone might choose A over B because it fits their life at that moment. But preference is not a ranking system, and it has nothing to do with inherent worth.

Good or bad, better or worse – who can tell?

Words like better, worse, good, and bad are subjective. They live in the eye of the beholder. Saying someone has a “better body” or a “better personality” only makes sense if everyone is looking for the same thing — which they aren’t. Try noticing how often you use those words. And experiment with replacing them with “I prefer” or “this works for me.” It’s a small shift, but it changes the entire tone of the conversation you’re having with yourself.

As for good & bad – you honestly cannot tell because you don’t predict the future. You cannot know in the larger scheme of things if something is good or bad, you can only say if it is good or bad in the moment. Try watching this amazing TED talk that will give you even more background on good vs. bad. 

To sum it all up

So here’s the truth: there is no better version of you out there. The only person who can ever be better than you is tomorrow’s you. As long as you focus on growing in authenticity and leaning into what makes you uniquely you, comparison starts to lose its power.

To wrap up, no one is “better” than you. The only person who could be better than you is tomorrow’s you. As long as you focus on growing in authenticity and developing your uniqueness, you will start seeing clearly that there is no comparison and that you are the best you out there. Your partner or friend could get someone different from you, but not better. For that, they need to stick around to see YOU grow.