Have you ever felt like you’re falling behind in life? Maybe you scroll through social media and see friends or strangers achieving milestones—buying houses, getting promotions, traveling the world—and suddenly, your own progress feels inadequate in comparison.
It’s a common feeling, but here’s the truth: it’s impossible to fall behind.
Here are five eye-opening reasons behind this perception, and most importantly, how to turn it to your advantage.
1. You’re Making Upward Comparisons
In psychology, there's a theory called the Social Comparison Theory. This suggests that people value their personal and social worth by assessing how they compare to others.
There are two main types of social comparison: upward and downward. Upward comparison is when we compare ourselves with those we perceive as better or superior to us, while downward comparison is when we look at those who seem to have less.
When we compare ourselves to someone who appears to be worse off, we often create a sense of superiority in things like our abilities or current status, which can boost our self-esteem. But, as you can imagine, when we compare ourselves to someone who seems to be better off, it can make us feel inadequate and behind in life.
But here’s the thing, a lot of what you see when you look up is just an illusion. Something that looks so enticing is usually carefully curated. Many people use tools and structures that make their lives look far more impressive than they really are.
For instance, say you and your old classmate from school both went to university and landed a similar job. You both worked in the role for 5 years, but your old classmate seems to be better off than you. A better car, a bigger house, a promotion, more money. In this way, comparing yourself to them can make you feel like they have everything you want, and you might start to think you’re falling behind in life because you haven’t achieved the same.
But what you don’t see is that they might have substantial credit card debt or they may hate their job because they’re always working over and they don’t have time for their friends and family. You don’t know what is going on behind closed doors and simply comparing yourself to their achievements won’t do you any benefits.
The truth is, we're all on different paths with unique challenges and opportunities. So, instead of feeling pressured by these comparisons, you can use them as inspiration and motivation for your own growth. This is called benign envy and can be very impactful in your life.
For instance, rather than thinking that you’re behind in life, you can shift your focus and use the comparison as a tool for personal development. It can guide you on a path of what’s possible in life and motivate you to work towards goals that are bigger than yourself.
2. You Don’t Know What You Want
Often, when we find ourselves comparing our achievements and progress to others and feel like we're falling behind in life, it's because we haven't figured out what we truly want. Let me give you an example.
About four years ago, I felt stuck and dissatisfied with my life. On the surface, everything seemed to be going well. I had recently moved from the Netherlands to Australia to finally be with my now wife, after a year and a half of long-distance, and accepted a research position at one of the major universities. However, after a while, I just felt so unhappy and was completely lost.
I had set my sights on advancing in academia, with a PhD as the next logical step. But I quickly discovered that this path was more challenging than anticipated due to the differences in Australia's academic system.
Then, COVID-19 struck. The country locked down, borders closed, and suddenly, I felt isolated on this big island. I was stuck, unhappy, and wasn’t making any progress in my career - I felt like I was falling behind in life.
But this sense of unease and discontent eventually pushed me to look inward and ask myself some difficult questions:
- What do I want from life?
- Where do I see myself in five years?
- What are my long-term goals and aspirations?
Answering these questions helped me discover what I truly want out of life, and chart a new path for my life, which eventually led me to forming my personal mission statement and starting The Happier Studio.
Knowing what you value and what you want out of life is incredibly important because if you don’t align your life with your values and what truly makes you happy, you're always going to feel like you're lagging behind because you’re pursuing something that others want.
You might find that you have joy in experiences like travel, investing in personal growth, or starting a business. Or you might find fulfilment in taking care of your family and helping others in need. It can be truly anything, as long as it aligns with your values and you know what you want out of life.
At the end of the day, you might not have everything that your peers do but you'll have what you genuinely value and that's far more fulfilling.
3. You Let Your Emotions Control You
When you feel like you’re falling behind in life, it’s natural to want to catch up with others. You see where people around you are, and you envision yourself there too. However, often the steps that we need to take are not the ones that we want to take or the ones we think will actually help us.
For instance, imagine wanting to be more social but struggling with social anxiety. You know that to become more social, you should attend events and meet new people. Yet, your mind tells you it won’t work, especially not for someone as socially awkward as you and you will just embarrass yourself like you’ve done in the past. So, you opt to stay home and watch Netflix instead.
What’s happening here is your mind is sabotaging you by generating reasons why you shouldn’t try. It convinces you that attending social events will lead to rejection and embarrassment. It will tell you things like: Don’t go to that social event because no one will like. What are you going to talk about anyway, you don’t have anything interesting to talk about, and you’ll just embarrass yourself.
You see these type of reasoning all the time in political arguments or trolls on the Internet. And it doesn’t matter how logical you are, and all the evidence you present them with, they have plenty of logic to refute your logic.
And this is the real problem, where people get tripped up, because when you have logical reason to NOT do something, why bother trying to overcome them?
But, the moment your brain urges you to NOT do something, your emotions are controlling you. And when your emotions control your thoughts, logical thinking takes a backseat, leading to decisions based on fiction or fear rather than facts.
The key to breaking this cycle is acknowledging the emotional component and then addressing it:
- Recognise the underlying emotions, which is often rooted in feelings like shame or fear.
- Decompress these emotions through techniques like mindfulness or self-reflection.
- Understand the origins of your anxieties about social situations, shifting your focus from who you think you are to who you want to become.
This shift is pivotal because many people remain stuck for years, thwarted by their own self-sabotage that is driven by ego and emotions. By overcoming these internal barriers, you can align your actions with your aspirations, moving closer to where you want to be in life.
4. You’re Chained To Internal Expectations
Internal expectations are what we expect from ourselves: they are our wishes, and our desires. When our expectations of how our life is supposed to be going are met, we feel happy. But when our expectations of how our life is supposed to be going are unmet, we feel unhappy.
These expectations are often based on societal norms, parental influence, and our own aspirations. Growing up, many of us were influenced by a previous generation's blueprint for success—where milestones like marriage, homeownership, and stable careers were achieved earlier in life.
For instance, imagine you're in your early 30s. Throughout your life, you've been told that attending university would secure your dream job, paving the way for financial stability and happiness. But reality looks different—you're struggling to afford a home, you are unhappy with your job, and you’re definitely haven't reached this ‘end stage’ of happiness.
In reality, societal shifts, economic realities, and changing cultural norms have reshaped these timelines - creating these unrealistic expectations of where we ‘should’ be in life. And because we’ve been told that this is the path to happiness, we’ve gotten ourselves chained to these internal expectations.
But, as is with life, it rarely follows a linear path. And although times have changed and it’s so much harder to hit these milestones, it’s essential to reframe these expectations realistically.
At the end of the day, each person's journey is unique, shaped by their individual circumstances, opportunities, and choices, and comparing your progress to others' or to an idealised timeline only breeds unhappiness.
So, instead of viewing setbacks as failures, consider them as chapters in your personal narrative that contributes to your growth and resilience.
5. You’re Not Learning
I already touched on it briefly, but when you compare yourself upwards, you can either make yourself feel like you’re behind in life and envy that person in a malicious way, or you can learn from them by using something that’s called benign envy.
Benign envy is a way for people to invest more effort to be as successful as the other person. Instead of asking yourself: Why does this person make more money than me? Or Why is this person doing better than me? You ask yourself: How are they achieving this?
Turning the question from WHY to HOW, turns your envy into curiosity and growth. We often think others have it all figured out, especially when they seem to be wealthier, happier or more successful, and it’s easy to believe that they are just lucky or have advantages that we don’t.
But when you look into their story or ask them how they got there, you’ll find that they often have worked really hard to get there, and failed over and over again before finally finding that one thing that worked for them.
Before I started making content online, I always got sucked into doom scrolling - just mindlessly scrolling over Instagram, and this was just making me feel really shit. All I was seeing were all these people who were so happy and successful, that my life was nothing in comparison. And although I was well aware that people simply post the positive things in their lives, I couldn't help but to feel bad about my life.
But, when I changed my way of thinking and asked myself, what are these people doing that I’m not. How can I learn from them, rather than envy them in a way that is making me feel bad, I started to grow and spend less time doom scrolling. This is why I think every one should be a creator rather than a consumer when they want to use social media.
It’s just such an important shift to make and understanding the difference between malicious and benign envy, can really help you progress and grow in life.
References
- Meier A, Schäfer S. The positive side of social comparison on social network sites: How envy can drive inspiration on Instagram. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 2018 Jul 1;21(7):411-7.
- Smith RH. The Two Faces of Envy: Studying Benign and Malicious Envy in the Workplace Christopher M. Sterling California State University, Fresno Niels van de Ven Tilburg University.
- Yang C, Tang R. Validating the “two faces” of envy: The effect of self-control. Frontiers in Psychology. 2021 Oct 27;12:731451.