So many of us feel like we’re behind in our lives. We glance around and see numerous examples of people achieving the things we want to achieve. Maybe we’re comparing ourselves to someone who has more financial stability than us. Maybe they have a skill we want to cultivate, a fulfilling relationship, a great career, happiness, you name it. When we see these people living well and making progress, it can often lead us to feel bad about whatever we seem to be “lacking.”

We look at ourselves and think, “What the heck have I been doing with my time? Why am I not as far along in my goals as this other person?” 

If you’re like most people, this self-criticism leads to beliefs that you have fallen short in your life so far. That your “lack of accomplishments” is all due to personal failings and character flaws. 

That’s harsh. 

And also, not true. 

This comparison and self-criticism is a significant and unnecessary source of discouragement in your life, and I want to encourage you to abandon this bad habit. 

When you compare another person’s achievements to your “lack thereof,” what you’re really doing is comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle. This is unfair to yourself, and the negative feelings that result from it can slow down your progress in your own goals.

No matter how much you’ve accomplished to get where you are today, you will always find someone else who is closer to achieving a goal than you are. So, if you use other people’s accomplishments as a reason to feel badly about yourself, then you will feel badly about yourself often.

Don’t Compare Your Beginning to Someone Else’s Middle. 

When we compare our beginning to someone else’s middle, it makes us feel like our accomplishments are smaller than they really are. It also neglects the fact that your journey is your own, and makes you feel like the things you strive for “aren’t supposed to take so long.” 

But like anything worth having, your goals will take some time to achieve. And that’s perfectly okay.

Comparison also makes us impatient, self-critical, and more easily discouraged. So it’s really important that we recognize the impact of comparing our beginning to someone else’s middle. If we don’t, then we risk continuing this habit, discouraging ourselves, and wearing down our pride in our own work.

This can also lead you to believe that something is wrong with you simply because you haven’t arrived where other people are yet. There’s nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with your journey. And there is nothing wrong with your entirely unique path to your goals.

As a perfectionist and an overachiever, I have engaged in this kind of mindset more times than I can count. 

Most recently, I compared my career success to my partner, Bradley (Bradley has a career as a software developer). When I initially looked at his achievements, I felt insecure because I was still in the process of formulating my own career path. I criticized myself for not being “as far along” in my career development as he was.

Once I brought this up to him, he reminded me that he graduated three years earlier than I did; in other words, he had a pretty sizable head start.

I think this is true for many of us. We look to people who have achieved successes we hope to have for ourselves and we focus more on the fact that they have it and we don’t than the fact that our lives are not supposed to look exactly like theirs. Ultimately, comparing ourselves to others leads us to minimize our achievements and diminish our pride in our own development.

In retrospect, there was no logical reason for me to expect my path to look anything akin to Bradley’s. And the sooner I took pride in my unique path towards my own brand of career development, the sooner I could take ownership of my journey. 

Ultimately, the career paths and dreams Bradley and I have for our lives are totally different. So, my path to achieving my goals is not supposed to look like his, and it’s not supposed to look like anyone else’s. It is simply supposed to be my own. And the same goes for you.

“You’re Not Behind”

It can take some time to internalize this. There are still plenty of days where I struggle to remind myself that I’m not behind. But if we are able to pull ourselves out of comparison and get into a space that is accepting of where we are in our journey, we will make progress much more quickly because we’ll be making progress in the absence of self-criticism and disappointment. 

When I recently enrolled in my coaching program, I was inclined to compare myself to my other classmates. My primary source of anxiety about the program came from knowing that many of my classmates already own successful coaching businesses (whereas I am in the beginning stages of setting up my own).

But truthfully, I’m not “behind.” Many of my classmates just happen to be in the middle of their journey and I am somewhere in the beginning of mine. 

For some time, I used their successes as an excuse to tell myself stories about my own inadequacy. However, the achievements of others should never have made me feel bad. I know now that every one of their paths is unique, and so is my own. 

When we accept that we are in our beginnings, other people are in their middles, and all of our paths are meant to be entirely unique, then we can trust that we are not “behind,” We are just at a different points in our journeys. 

Use Your Beginning to Your Advantage

If other people seem like they are “ahead” of you, then there is likely something you can learn from their missteps, their successes, and the challenges they’ve faced. 

Instead of seeing other people’s successes as a threat, try thinking of them as a resource; resources to help you achieve your goals and “learn the ropes” of whatever it is you want to accomplish. 

The more you do this, the better you will become at anticipating and overcoming the challenges within your own journey. 

Once I recognized this and focused on the value each of my fellow classmates were bringing to the table, I saw their different experiences and backgrounds as something helpful instead of threatening.

Honestly, it took so much pressure off that I went from shaking before I spoke in class to feeling completely calm about the prospect of meeting and getting to know these people.

Comparing your Beginning to Other People’s Middles is Very Different From Having Role Models 

There is a huge difference between perceiving someone else’s successes as reasons to feel bad about ourselves and perceiving them as footsteps we’d like to follow. 

If you see someone who has accomplished what you want to accomplish and choose to hold them up as inspiration for your own journey, then wonderful! That will serve you well. But if you look at another person’s achievements and use it as a reason to believe you are not enough. It will only slow you down.

There will always be people who seem “ahead” of where you are in whatever goal you’re trying to accomplish.

Unless you become a world record holder or invent something that has never existed before, there will always be people in the world who have done/accomplished more than you have. But this is never personal. More often than not, those people have either A. had more time on this earth or B. have devoted more hours to the skill or goal than you have.

If this is the case, that doesn’t mean anything negative about you, that just means you have more work to do to get to where you want to go. 

And even if this is not the case (for example, the person is younger than you and has devoted less hours to this skill or goal), that’s perfectly okay too. That still doesn’t mean anything negative about you. 

No matter who you compare yourself to, and no matter where you are in your progress, one thing is always true: your journey is and will always be different from theirs. That alone is a reason to cut yourself some slack and stop beating yourself up. 

The inevitable reality of comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle is that you will always feel behind unless you can change your mindset. So please quit beating yourself up, your future self with thank you for it.

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Is there an area of life where you’ve felt “behind”? Are you still feeling “behind”? Or are you right where you’re meant to be: on your unique path towards your ultimate goals?

Leave a comment or send me a message to share your thoughts. For more uplifting content, check out some other posts on my blog, follow me on instagram @morgan_barbret, or sign up for the Self Love Atlas Newsletter!

Cheers, 

Morgan Rita Barbret

P.S.

When my Dad first read this post about feeling behind, it reminded him of the song “Grand Illusion” performed by Styx. The song isn’t exactly my favorite genre of music, but the lyrics are actually quite fitting for the topic. So if you’re interested, check out the song and the lyrics here.