Unhelpful Comparisons

Comparing yourself to another is a roadblock. Comparing you to you takes away the detour to your progress.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

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"The Grasshopper" is the part of you that whispers pearls of wisdom that  seem to pop into your mind from out of the blue. John's essays and blog posts are his interpretations of these "Nips of Nectar." Others have labeled his writings as timeless wisdom. 

Most of the John's writings revolve around self improvement and self help. They address topics like:

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Transcript

Unhelpful Comparisons

I’ve learned something the hard way: comparing myself to others just doesn’t help.

Now, when I say “unhelpful comparisons,” I mean measuring your accomplishments against someone else’s. For me, that’s a dead end. What works better is comparing me to me.

Let me take you back about 11 years. I was swimming laps at a local pool. There was another guy about my age in the next lane, working with an instructor on a water aerobics routine.

My workout that day was to swim 20 lengths, rest for 30 or 40 seconds, then do another 20, rest again, and finish with 20 more. About a mile in all.

Afterwards, the man said, “Compared to you, I’m doing nothing.” I told him he was doing more than 80% of the population who were really doing nothing. He laughed and said, “I don’t think I’ll ever get to your level.”

That’s when I explained: three months earlier, I could barely swim two lengths without being completely winded. I worked my way back up, little by little.

I still remember that first day back. I was frustrated, watching everyone else glide through the water while I was struggling. I was measuring myself against them—and it wasn’t helping.

What did help was measuring myself against yesterday. Two lengths became four. Four became eight. That’s progress I could see.

The truth is, when we compare ourselves to others, we put up roadblocks. But when we measure against our own benchmarks, the path forward looks a whole lot clearer.

Patience and persistence, not comparison, is what moves you forward.

After all, I’ll never throw a football like Tom Brady did—but that doesn’t stop me from tossing one around in the front yard. Why miss out on the joy of doing something just because someone else is better at it?

So instead of “one step at a time,” let me put it this way: pay more attention to your progress, and you’ll go farther than you think. And then you’ll be able to say—with a smile—that you’re beyond compare.

All the best,

John