5 Things To Compare Yourself To

You are your best form of comparison. You are your best teacher. You are your best navigator towards what’s better for you. Comparing yourself to others in the sense of I’m not doing as much as they are, is a waste of your time and energy.

You are disconnected from the intricacies of where everyone else is in their life, how they got there, and what they’re truly like in their life. However, you know all of yourself, how you feel, and where you want to go. 

There are also so many versions of yourself that you can utilize and tap into to use comparison to your own advantage. There are 5 versions of yourself to compare who you are right now to either learn or grow from.

Past Self

Comparing your current self to your past self shows you where you can grow. Comparing yourself now to your past self also gives you a chance to thank yourself for being who you were to get you to where you are. 

It’s not a time to shame yourself or get mad at yourself for who you were, but to realize who you were is all you knew at the time. Seeing a difference in how you would have handled something in the past tells you that who you are now is different than your past self, and that you have grown.

Future Self

Comparing your current self to your future tells you more about you dreams and what you’re capable. I’m a firm believer that what you dream of is given to you for a reason. I believe that if you can think of it, your future self is doing it. 

There’s a Mel Robbins podcast where she talks about this. She mentions that if you are making a choice about doing something, to ask yourself if someone gave you a million dollars how would you do something? The point of answering that question of how you’d do something with that mindset in mind, shows you the untapped potential you have to do something. Same thing goes for noticing the gap between who you are now and where you want to be in the future, that gap is your unmet potential that you have the ability to fill in. 

Favorite Self

Comparing who you are now to your favorite self, let’s you find parts of who you are in the current that you love but maybe you forget to notice sometimes. What are the details of what make you, you that make you feel like your favorite self. 

I’m my favorite self when I get to relax, when I write, and when I get to have a slow day dream day. Your favorite self is who you are when you’re most connected with yourself. Who are you being today compared to who you are when you’re your favorite self?

Shadow Self 

Comparing yourself to your shadow self shows you where you can focus on being more connected to your truest self. The shadow self has a reputation for being the parts of you that are bad or that you dislike, but I think the shadow self is more of the parts of you that create some of the behaviors you may not understand about yourself. It’s an opportunity to go deeper with yourself and ask yourself questions you may have never asked or see a perspective of yourself that you’ve never noticed. 

There’s light and dark to all of us, and exploring the parts of yourself that have yet to be discovered is exciting, it makes you feel more connected to your whole self, and it’s fun to learn more about who you are on a deeper level. 

Unknown Self 

There’s a lot of fear in the unknown. It’s something new that you don’t have to navigate, and it is a common fear for people to dislike or be afraid of the unknown. However, the beautiful part of the unknown is that anything can happen. Anything you can ever imagine is possible in the unknown. The same is true with your unknown self. 

There are infinite versions of you doing billions of different life scenarios. Comparing who you are now to the unknown self gives you the opportunity to play around with what your dream life may be, create possibilities for yourself no matter how big, and give yourself the encouragement to believe in yourself to try these things you think of because in your unknown self they are possible. The current you sets the precedence for that unknown self dream to become a reality, comparing the current you with the unknown you gives you the start to be who you dream you can be.