You get on Instagram and somebody is on an incredible trip. You open LinkedIn and somebody you went to college with just got promoted. Your friend gets engaged. Someone else moves into a nicer apartment. Another person seems to be making way more money than you.

Nothing about your life actually changed in those five minutes, but suddenly you feel worse about it.

I think that's one of the hardest things about comparison. You can be completely fine with where you are until you see where somebody else is. Then you start questioning whether you're doing enough, moving fast enough, or somehow falling behind.

I don't think the answer is to tell yourself you'll never compare again. That's probably impossible. The goal is to get better at recognizing when comparison is changing how you feel about a life you were perfectly okay with five minutes ago.

Understand That Comparing Yourself Is Normal

The first thing I would stop doing is beating yourself up every time you compare yourself to somebody else.

People compare. It's normal. The American Psychological Association explains that decades of social-comparison research have found that people often compare themselves upward, meaning against people they perceive as doing better than they are. Those comparisons can make us feel worse about ourselves.

So the goal isn't to somehow become the one person who never notices what anybody else is doing. It's learning what to do after you notice.

“It's very real to compare yourself to people, especially in our twenties, especially post-college and throughout our twenties. When you see big updates, when you see people doing things that seem bigger or better or brighter. And it's hard not to compare.”

The comparison itself isn't necessarily the problem. The problem is everything you start telling yourself because of it.

Remember That You're Comparing Against Incomplete Information

This is probably the biggest thing I try to remind myself when I start comparing.

You don't actually know what somebody else's life is like.

You know they got promoted. You know they went on that trip. You know they have a great apartment. You know they're in a relationship. You know whatever they've chosen to share with you.

You don't know everything else.

“You really don't know anybody else's story. You don't know what anybody else is going through or what they're feeling or what they're dealing with or how they feel about themselves or their situation.”

You're comparing everything you know about yourself, including every insecurity and uncertainty, against a tiny amount of information about somebody else.

That's never going to be a fair comparison.

Psychology Today notes that comparison can sometimes motivate us, but regularly comparing ourselves with others can also create dissatisfaction, guilt, and regret. The problem isn't simply noticing somebody doing well. It's what you decide their success means about you.

Stop Turning Someone Else's Timeline Into Yours

This is where comparison gets especially difficult in your 20s.

For most of your life, everybody around you was doing roughly the same thing at roughly the same time. You moved through grades together. You graduated together. A lot of people went to college at the same age.

Then suddenly everyone goes in completely different directions.

One person gets married at 25. Someone else is single at 30. One friend knows exactly what they want to do professionally. Another changes careers three times. Somebody makes a ton of money early. Somebody else doesn't hit their stride until much later.

There isn't one correct order.

If this is the part of comparison you struggle with most, Is It Normal to Feel Behind in Your 20s? gets more specifically into why everyone else's milestones can make your own life feel late.

You aren't necessarily behind. You may just be looking at somebody else's timeline and deciding yours is supposed to match it.

Pay Attention to What You're Actually Comparing

Comparison can also tell you something useful if you stop at the right moment.

Let's say somebody gets promoted and you immediately feel jealous. Instead of spending the next hour thinking about how much better they're doing, ask yourself what exactly bothered you.

Do you want more money? More responsibility? A new job? Recognition? Do you actually want their career, or did their announcement just remind you that you're unhappy with yours?

The same thing can happen with relationships, apartments, travel, fitness, or almost anything else.

Sometimes comparison points directly toward something you want. That's useful information.

The goal is to take the information without taking all of the self-judgment that usually comes with it.

Celebrate Your Friends Without Making Their Wins About You

This can be particularly hard when the person you're comparing yourself to is somebody you actually care about.

Your friend tells you they got a huge raise, and you're genuinely happy for them. At the exact same time, part of you starts wondering why you're not making that much.

Both reactions can exist.

You don't have to pretend their accomplishment doesn't bring something up for you. But you also don't want every good thing that happens to somebody you love to become evidence against yourself.

Celebrate them. Ask questions. Go out for drinks. Be the friend you'd want them to be if something great happened to you.

Their win didn't take anything away from you.

Compare Yourself to Yourself More Often

I know this sounds like one of those pieces of advice that is much easier to say than actually do.

But I think it becomes more useful when you make it specific.

Don't ask whether you're doing as well as somebody else. Ask whether you're doing better than you were six months ago.

Are you better at your job? Have you gotten more confident dating? Are you taking better care of yourself? Have you become a better friend? Did you finally start doing something you kept saying you wanted to do?

“I really shouldn't be in competition with that person because their timeline is so fucking different than mine. Everything they're doing is so different than mine.”

You don't need to be winning every category of your life at the same time. You just want some evidence that you're continuing to move.

That's also the idea behind How to Build Confidence When You Feel Behind in Life. Confidence becomes much easier to build when you're collecting your own evidence of progress instead of constantly looking for evidence that somebody else is ahead.

Change What You're Looking At

Sometimes the solution is also incredibly practical.

If there's an account that makes you feel terrible every time you see it, unfollow it. If LinkedIn sends you into a comparison spiral every morning, maybe you don't need to check LinkedIn every morning.

You don't have to prove that you're emotionally strong enough to consume things that consistently make you feel bad.

This doesn't mean you need to delete every social media app. It means paying attention to what repeatedly triggers comparison and deciding whether it deserves that much access to you.

Harvard Health Publishing has discussed how social media can have both positive and negative effects on well-being, which is an important distinction. The goal doesn't have to be getting rid of social media. It can simply be changing how you use it.

Put the Attention Back on Your Own Life

Comparison requires attention.

The more time you spend looking at what everybody else is building, earning, buying, dating, or accomplishing, the less attention you're giving to what you're doing.

That's the part you can actually change.

Apply for the job. Go on the date. Work out. Make the thing. Call your friend. Start the project. Learn the skill. Do something that gives you evidence that your own life is moving.

You don't get out of comparison by winning against everybody else.

You get out of it by becoming more interested in building your own life than monitoring theirs.

And Here's The Thing

You're going to compare yourself again.

You'll see somebody get something you want and feel jealous. You'll find out someone is making more money than you expected. You'll see an engagement, promotion, apartment, vacation, relationship, or accomplishment and wonder for a second why you're not there yet.

That's normal.

The goal isn't to eliminate that first thought. It's to stop letting that thought become a story about everything that's wrong with your life.

Notice the comparison. Figure out whether it's telling you something useful. Remind yourself that you don't know the full story. Then bring your attention back to what you're doing.

Somebody else's life can be going incredibly well without yours going badly.

Those two things can exist at the same time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I constantly compare myself to other people?

Comparison is a natural way of evaluating where you stand. It becomes a problem when you repeatedly use other people's lives as the standard for whether you're doing well enough.

How do I stop comparing myself to my friends?

Remember that your friends' timelines aren't your timeline. Celebrate their wins while paying attention to your own progress and what you actually want for yourself.

How do I stop comparing myself on social media?

Pay attention to which accounts or platforms consistently trigger comparison. Unfollow, mute, or spend less time with content that repeatedly makes you feel worse about your own life.

Why do I feel behind when other people are successful?

Someone else's success can highlight something you want for yourself. Instead of automatically interpreting that feeling as proof you're behind, use it to identify what you want to work toward.

Is comparing yourself to others always bad?

No. Comparison can sometimes provide motivation or help you identify something you want. The problem is when somebody else's progress consistently makes you see your own life as inadequate.