How to stop comparing yourself to others

A couple of days ago I caught myself doing something I really dislike doing.

Scrolling through posts about other people's wins: someone made five figures this month, someone landed their dream client,
someone's business is "exploding" – and instead of feeling inspired, I just felt... small. Like everything I'd built and worked for somehow didn't count anymore because someone else had more. This feeling made me anxious. I literally wasn't feeling good physically.

And then I stopped and thought – what am I actually doing right now?

Because here's the thing about comparison: it doesn't motivate you. It doesn't push you forward. It just quietly takes everything you've already achieved and makes it invisible.

First – you're not even comparing fairly

Social media shows you the final slide, not the whole presentation.

You see the revenue number, client announcement, or "we did it" post – and you have zero context for what came before it. How many years. How many failures. How many months of silence you people had before that one big win??

You're comparing your year #2 in your career to someone's year #10 without knowing it! And the algorithms make it even worse – they're specifically designed to surface the most impressive, most engaging posts, which means your feed is not a realistic picture of anyone's life. It's a curated and filtered source of stories, and measuring yourself against it is like comparing your behind-the-scenes to everyone else's trailer.

Here’s another thought I had the other day: some of it might also just be made up. After all, these are just words on a screen. There's no audit, proof, or way to verify any of it. Which doesn't mean everyone's lying – but it does mean I was making myself feel bad over something I can't even confirm is real.

Why comparison doesn't work even when it is real

Even if every number you see is accurate – comparison still doesn't help you. Like AT ALL.

A therapist once gave me a practice for those moments when you're being hard on yourself about something. She said that you need to tell yourself something like "I did the best I could with what I had in that specific moment." And I think this applies here too. When comparison hits, the redirect is: "I'm doing everything I can to move forward and grow as fast as I can." Not a comparison to anyone else. Just you, your work, and your direction.

Because comparing yourself to others doesn't just not help – it actively gets in the way. It takes your focus off your own work and puts it on someone else's, which is the one guaranteed way to slow yourself down.

If you want help figuring out your own direction and what to actually focus on next – that's exactly what coaching 1:1 sessions are for. Details here →

What helps

A few things that work for me when the comparison spiral starts:

• Mute without drama. If someone's account consistently makes you feel bad about your own work – mute them. Not unfollow, just mute. There’s really no drama about it, as you're allowed to curate what comes into your brain every day.

• Compare to past you only. The only fair comparison is you a year ago vs you now. That's the one that shows actual growth, progress, and evidence that the work is working.

• Keep a wins list somewhere. Small one or big ones – all of them. Because when comparison hits, your brain conveniently forgets everything you've done and fixates on what you haven't. A list doesn't let it do that.

• Turn comparison into curiosity. Instead of "why them and not me," try "what can I actually learn from this?" It shifts the energy from deflating to useful.

• Limit the scroll. Obvious but true – the longer you're on social media without intention, the more comparison creeps in. Give yourself a time limit and stick to it.

The thing that really gets me

When I compare myself to others, I'm literally closing my eyes to everything I've built. The wins – small and large – don't disappear. They just get overshadowed by thoughts about someone else, which at the end of the day means I'm spending my energy on someone who isn't me, on a path that isn't mine, and on a story I don't even have full context for.

And the only story I actually need to be focused on? Mine.

The small wins are still there, and the big ones too. Nothing went anywhere – it just got temporarily drowned out by noise that was never about me in the first place.

If comparison has been hitting you lately – you're not alone, and you're definitely not behind! You're just on your own timeline, which is the only one that actually matters.

Curious to hear what you do when comparison creeps in? Would love to hear your stories.

As always, thank you for reading,

xx