FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Career success expert, Dr. Liz Bywater, has posted her newest blog entry:
Keeping Up with the Joneses: How to Use Social Comparison to Up Your Game. In this post, Liz notes that "we look to others' achievements to assess our own accomplishments. We wonder:
How am I doing, anyway? Am I at least as successful as the guy next door?"
Here's more:
Ah, the Joneses. Who are these Joneses anyway - and why do we try so hard to keep up with them?
The fact is, social comparison is one of the ways we human beings judge ourselves. We look to others' achievements to assess our own accomplishments. We wonder:
How am I doing, anyway? Am I at least as successful as the guy next door? We compare and contrast ourselves to an array of other people - colleagues, competitors, family and friends. We look at their achievements and use them as a yardstick for answering questions like:
Am I doing as well as they are? Am I as attractive? As thin? As smart? As well-liked? As wealthy? And where does all of this comparison leave us, anyway? Well, that depends on what you do with it. Best case scenario, it works to motivate and inspire you. You think to yourself:
If they can do it, so can I! Worst case, it can be completely demoralizing, as in,
I'll never be as good as they are, so why bother? The key is to be aware of the social comparisons you're making - and to harness these comparisons for your own growth. What does your competitor – or your colleague or your neighbor or your sister or whomever – do especially well? How can you learn from these people? Which of their strategies and techniques can you adopt in order to improve your own effectiveness?
Use others' successes as inspiration - and take action to up your own game. Before you know it, the Joneses will be trying to keep up with you!
Until then…
Liz
About Liz Bywater, PhD
Dr. Liz Bywater is an internationally acclaimed career and workplace performance expert. She consults, writes, and speaks on a variety of leadership and career-related topics. Some of her most popular presentations include: Leadership Essentials for Troubled Times, Communicating for Success, Stress Management at Work and at Home, Practical Goal-Setting, and Conflict Resolution in the Workplace.
Through a wide of variety of consulting and coaching programs, Dr. Bywater helps her clients achieve dramatic improvements in individual, team, and organizational performance. Her clients range from independent business owners to senior executives within the Fortune 50. She sits on the advisory board for Par Excellence Magazine and is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Advancement of Consulting, and the Cornell Entrepreneur Network. Dr. Bywater is quoted frequently in the media and has been interviewed by such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Crain's, Yahoo! HotJobs and USA Today.
To interview Dr. Bywater for print, Web, radio or TV, call 800.846.4546 ext. 103.
To inquire about speaking or consulting services, call 800.846.4546 ext. 103.
Read Career Success with Liz Bywater:
http://bywatercareersuccess.blogspot.com Follow Liz on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/drlizbywater To subscribe to Bywater Consulting Group's complimentary e-newsletter, filled with practical tips for improving individual, team, and organizational performance, send an email to
info@BywaterConsultingGroup.com. Subject line: Subscribe.
###