“I feel like I’m falling behind.”

Something that is becoming increasingly more common in today’s world is feeling like you’re falling behind. Take one look at social media and it seems like everyone else is succeeding - building awesome careers and businesses, taking amazing trips, getting into great shape - and it makes you wonder what you’re doing wrong. 

Especially talented, hard-working, smart people who are doing all the right things… They can’t figure out why they’re struggling so much to get the result. They don’t understand why other people make it look so easy but they need to fight for every inch of progress.

To this I want to present two perspective shifts. The first relates to the reality of other people’s successes. The people you admire likely have similar insecurities. They question their level of achievement just the same. What this suggests is that our tendency to feel bad for ourselves in comparison to others is a human condition, and that real shifts in perception come from changes internally rather than from validation externally.

Tom Bilyeu from Impact Theory puts it beautifully: “People believe that when they become the person that they look at with admiration, they will feel that same admiration for themselves.” And unfortunately, that’s just not true.

The second perspective shift is to represent the feelings more accurately. The comparison to others only brings to surface what it means about yourself. It’s the insufficiency prompted by comparing yourself to others that drives the belief that is really at play here: “I thought I would be further along by now.” and “I feel like I’m falling behind.” 

The business person’s jealousy of someone else’s success is a reflection that their business isn’t where they want it to be. Seeing someone else in a loving romantic relationship makes you anxious that you’re running out of time to meet your soulmate. We’re each running our own race, and the genuine fear is that we’re falling behind the pace set by where we think we should be.

But there are a few beautiful parts about it. First is, you’re exactly where you need to be. So find some faith and solace in that. But also, it’s within your power to pick up the pace. If you feel like you’re falling behind, there are ways to speed up! Ask people for help, study your conditions for success, and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. You’ll be shocked to see how fast you start to make up ground.