- Looks at others with envy?
- Can never seem to get enough of anything?
- Can't stop thinking about the guy your wife had an affair with?
- Doesn't want to get divorced for fear of never meeting someone as "good" as your wife?
A habit of comparison is a sign that you are not living from your own initiative nor making choices based on your values.
You constantly watch others to see what they are doing and what they have and then judge your own success by how you compare to
them.
This incessant focus on what others do creates a dependence on them and leads to only being able to REACT and not taking action according to your own values.
Living from a reactionary stance relies on others to make the first move so that you can then make a counter move and so on. When no one makes a
move you sit idle waiting, watching and plotting.
It is a slow and disconnected way of being that makes you a follower waiting for your master’s command and NOT a man of decisive
action.
This is how insecure men live!
You don’t need others to decide whether YOU are good or not.
Being reactionary is tiring and relies on constantly taking note of what other people are doing to be able to decide what you will do.
When we are insecure about our own value as a man, we look UP to others who we assume have it all.
This idea of looking "up" places us BELOW them.
We do this to avoid taking responsibly for OUR actions.
If things don't go to plan, then we can simply say "Well, that's because they did (_____________)!"
The opposite extreme of this is when we place ourselves ABOVE others.
This often happens when men discover their wives have had an affair.
They immediately take the moral high-ground and say things like:
"I would NEVER cheat on her!"
Or when referring to her affair partner: "What sort of scum would you have to be to date a married woman!"
What they don't realise is that whether you sit yourself above or below someone else you are binding yourself to them.
You make them your locus of control and you a satellite that orbits around them.
This leads to feeling disempowered and controlled by your circumstances and living in the shadow of others.
Thankfully there is an alternative which is to begin living from your values and start CREATING what you want from life.
4 Steps to breaking your cycle of competition and comparison:
1. Bring your focus back to you.
When you are comparing yourself to others you are directing your focus to things OUTSIDE of you. As you have no control over these things and can only observe them,
its easy to become obsessed
about what others are doing while not doing anything yourself!
As we are not doing anything to create change, we get frustrated that we are not progressing and look to blame others for where we are in life.
The next time you find yourself stuck in a thinking cycle I want you to bring your full attention and focus to how you are feeling and where in your body the feelings arise.
NOTE: This works for ANY uncomfortable thoughts that come up.
Take note of:
- How your head feels
- Where are you hot/cold?
- Where is there tension?
- Where are you relaxed?
Now I want you to deliberately slow your breathing down.
Take 5 deep breathes where you take just as long to exhale as you did to inhale. Breath DEEP into your belly and keep your attention only on you.
We cannot be stuck in our heads when we are breathing into our bellies.
Next go into depth and consider:
- Its shape
- Its texture
- Would it have a smell/taste?
- Would it have a sound?
What you are doing is separating yourself from your feelings.
2. Take control over your imagination
Depending on how you experience your thoughts of comparison you can use one of two options.
If you HEAR an inner voice, imagine it's playing on the radio and begin to manipulate it:
- Speed it up or slow it right down.
- Change it to a cartoon character (Elmer Fudd and Eric Cartman from South Park work well).
- Change the accent
