Comparisons are hateful and they never make us feel good when they are malicious. Comparisons can become toxic when you have people around you who like to compare themselves too much either to humiliate others or to try to feel better at the cost of other people. Sometimes these competitive friends turn out to be toxic people and are best left out of your life.

Competitive friends can work for you by competing against themselves and helping you compete against yourself, or by pushing you in good ways to reach your potential, but without making you feel bad or undermining your self-esteem. If you feel judged, or see that some ‘friend’ is upset by your successes … then something is wrong. It is necessary to eliminate competitiveness to enhance camaraderie.

The positive side of competitiveness and comparison

There is a silver lining to competitiveness and social comparison. When your friends are doing well, they also inspire you to be the best version of yourself, which is the advantage of upward social comparison … And also if the secrets of success are shared, it becomes even more evident.

When you compare yourself to others who are worse off than you, you tend to appreciate what you have more. You realize that you could be in a worse position and fortunately, you are not. You feel more grateful and often experience more empathy as well.

People often compare themselves to keep up with a role model they admire for their success and this causes them to do their best to achieve their goals. Even the desire to avoid the shame of failure can be a good motivator. The main difference in friendly competition and the competition of  enemies is the support factor: true friends can help motivate each other to be successful, but they know that there is no shame in not reaching the goal.

Enemies seem to revel in the superiority and failure of others, while true friends are not completely happy in their own success if their friends are not there alongside them, they are doing well too; This motivates you to help your friends succeed, to revel in their successes, and to help them keep going through tough times, which is good for everyone.

How to get rid of competitive friends

If you find yourself before a competitive friend and you start to feel bad about his airs of superiority … then you need to get out of that mental trap. Here are some simple ways to start worrying less about what others think and to make toxic comparisons not a part of your life anymore:

– Find positive role models

– Have a good circle of support

– Find people with whom to share your motivation to achieve things

– Do not be envious of others

– Do not care what others think of you

– Practice altruism

– Avoid toxic friends

Remember that you are you and your circumstances and that each person has their own life and their own circumstances. It is important to be able to put yourself in the shoes of other people so that in this way, the comparisons are diminished almost by magic. When you feel good about yourself and the life you lead, then the comparisons will start to fade.

If you think that you have self-esteem or insecurity problems and that these are the causes of your constant comparisons, then what is clear is that you should work on these aspects so that in this way, the comparisons do not affect you so much or what others do. think about yourself or your abilities.