Stop comparing yourself to others
Do these 9 things instead
This article is part of a series dedicated to those interested in understanding the impact of comparison in our lives and how to manage it.
Today I’ll introduce you to 9 things to do instead of comparing yourself to others:
1 Do not take failure or success too seriously 😣
One day I was browsing Instagram, and not expecting it at all, I found the words I needed for my entire musical youthful life. It was so simple, but seems to me that this is one of the most important guiding principle of good musical life.
“Your success does not define you as a human being”
I read these words on Antonina Styczen Instagram. In other words, a person with musical success is not more valuable than you, even if you do not have many significant achievement.
Many young people struggle to recover from failure. This often stems from being overly attached to accomplishments. The mindset is: “I’ve succeeded, so I’m valuable 😎—I’ve failed, so I’m worthless.😭”
I understand this because in the past I presented the same attitude. Unfortunately, it happens when teachers create an atmosphere confirming that the value of a student depends on his/her winnings. Is not so rare that some professors pay more attention to the more gifted pupils, helping them to show their skills and hide those who need more time to bloom.
When you will notice that in your university or schools there is cultivated culture of success, you should remember, that the most important is your mental health and balance. So, if you match to this atmosphere and it doesn’t stress you excessively is good for you. We are different and some people love the competitive atmosphere. However, it is important not to overwhelm these more modest colleagues or more shy ones, but to support them in their effort.
If you are one of those who are overwhelmed by competitive culture of school or university and find it difficult to fit in, you must remember that you are worthy of respect regardless of your achievements. Consider please maintaining mental health and balance in your daily struggles.
We cannot deny that it is important to successful students being appreciated by teachers and colleagues. But in a situation where, despite solid work, we feel left out, avoided, or hidden, or in the worst case – humiliated or disrespected – it is worth considering changing the teacher.
2 Celebrate other people’s success 🎉
Other people’s success are not your failure.
I found these words on the profile of Jenny Clarinet Instagram. Is worth to remember these words, when we are tired of constantly comparing and we lack self-confidency.
Learn to celebrate other people’s success.🎉 Sometimes it’s not always an easy task, but if they were successful, so can you!
3 Learn to go offline and enjoy yourself ⛰️
Consider limiting your social media use or taking a detox if needed. If you choose to keep using it, at least unfollow any accounts that bring you down in any way. Try to make an effort and find the profiles, that help you grow and motivate you. For those interested in music, I recommend Classical wellness. Reality can differ from presented content, moreover is important to value our time and spend it with things that instead of upsetting us – make us better and more motivated.
If you have an account where you share your work also remember not to compulsively check likes and number of followers, as they are no indicator of your worth. These are just numbers, very often dependent mainly on the caprice of algorithms and do not indicate your true value as an artist. If an insufficient number of likes or folllowers makes you feel bad - for your own health, - limit your stay on these platforms. If you still want to continue sharing content - schedule posts in advance (e.g. Facebook Manager) and check it only once per day, or less frequent to avoid compulsive account checking and frustration. I did it and I am much happier and calmer!🥰
4 Understand that you don’t have control on everything 🧘♀️
Your music career will depend on many different factors. For example – country that you have born, school that you attend, people around that can help you to grow or, on the contrary, even hinder your development, opportunities that may come unexpectedly and in the end your decisions also. However, understanding that you do not have control of everything that can impact on your path, it is one of the best ways to find your inner peace and acceptance in the face of difficult times and crisis in career.
Observing the struggle in the International Chopin Competition for example, you can notice how much controversy is aroused not only by participants’ interpretations, but also by the prizes awarded by the jury. People in comments, journalists, musical critics can endlessly argue about the validity of the decisions made. There are many elements, personal beliefs, subjective aesthetic experiences that will influence the final judgement of participant. However, as we see, is not always what the audience agree with!
The same can happen with our musical career; we are never able to predict how it will go and plan everything. Is nice to notice, that we can’t just exactly copy someone path, because is not sure that we will achieve the same results. We can achieve even better results when we are just ourselves.
5 Consider musical development as a holistic development 🎵
Being musician can help us to grow as a person, getting know about our strong and weak sides, temperament, and put us to cross our limits. Learn music teach us to be dispciplined and reach the goals. It can be awesome path for you to just know yourself better.
If the pleasure of performing is only in the background and we are fixated only how to be better than others, this is the easiest path to frustration and in long run – to the dangerous burnout.☹️
6 Appreciate small wins ❤️🔥
Always remember that small wins are these that we can notice first. Is good to always write them down. These little practices (such a gratitude notebook) can significantly improve our well-being. This can help too direct us to be more focused on our own healthy development, than on everyone else.
If you will notice that your sound gained color, write it down! Why not to mention if you learnt some new fingering? Maybe your legato between registers is smoother? This is one from the best habit to increase self-esteem and minimize the negative effect of comparison with others, because in this case WE ARE THE MAIN COMPETITOR.
7 Do not criticize yourself too much! 🫂
I encourage you to abandon excessive self-criticism and objective analyze of your development and goals. In musical world we tend to have more critic toward ourselves than toward another people. With others we are softer, while with ourselves we can have super ambitious expectations and feel totally foolish when we do not fulfill the tasks set before us. Sometimes we tell ourselves the bad things, that we could never say to anyone. So why self-sabotage yourself?
Instead of self-destructive thoughts - sit down, pick up the notebook and honestly write down the elements in your playing, that you definitely would like to improve. You can choose your idols, that you want to follow. Of course, is normal to feel a little bit disappointed with the lacks that we have, or realize our distance that separate us from dreamed skills. But after admitting to ourselves what still need to be corrected, we can create a realistic work plan that, with the right dedication, can lead us to surprising results.
8 Accept that there are bad days 🥴
We forgot sometimes that we are humans, not a robot, and our life consist of better and worse moments. I assure you that EVERYBODY has ups and downs all the time and this is totally normal. Every musician struggles with their own problems.
To keep the mental health is important to learn the art of letting go. In the context of comparison - let our ears and eyes not deceive us, because REALLY every person, artist, musician has these days that they want to throw instrument through the window. This means that bad day is not the end of the world, and we lost our abilities or we are lazy – it is JUST A BAD DAY.
We should realize that the fact that someone is very successful on the stages of the world does not mean that he is the robot, and everything is always perfect. The most important is to keep going minimum despite the worse performance and let it go without too much overthinking and feeling guilty.
9 Connect with positive inspirations to improve your playing skills 👯
Spare your energy which you waste comparing with others, instead use it to ideas how to help yourself.
Find the workshops, courses or cultural events that will be full of cheerful and positive people just wanting to share their experience and knowledge and who aim is to make music together. Avoid those who is pretending to be elite, moderately available, selfish, or complaining a lot.🙄
Try to present such a positive, open attitude, being focused on beauty of life instead of strong rivalry. There is a big chance that someone is just comparing himself to YOU. And if that’s the case, it’s worth being the best and positive example.😌
That’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed it!
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See you next week.