Life isn't a race, it's a relay.
Some people sprint early.
Others save their strength for later.
Some are still building their skills.
Stop comparing your life to the lives of people you don't even want.
Stop comparing your progress to someone else's performance.
Stop comparing your worth to numbers, likes or applause.
Stop comparing because the more you do that, the less you see what's in your favor.
Hey everyone, it's Jay Shetty, author of New York Times bestsellers Think Like a Monk and Eight Rules of Love.
I'm so glad you're back here.
Today we're talking about what to do if you're feeling behind in life.
If you felt like everyone else has got their career right, this episode is for you.
If you're feeling like you should have been married right now and maybe even had children, this episode is for you.
And if you're feeling like everyone else is crushing it, but you've been left behind.
This episode is for you.
I think it's really natural in life to go from feeling like you were on track to off track.
But what's also natural is to feel you were always behind.
Now, where does this come from?
It comes from the fact that for potentially 16, 18 or 21 years of your life, if you were in formal education, you moved at the same pace as everyone.
So everyone went from seventh grade to eighth grade.
A lot of people went from high school to college and you went from college into your first job.
But it was at that point that the timelines changed.
Maybe your friend got promoted first and you got promoted last.
Maybe your other friend got proposed to first and you're still single.
Maybe your other friend had an amazing wedding and you're sitting here just trying to plan your weekend.
Maybe another friend has already had a baby and you're here just trying to figure out what you're going to watch on Netflix tonight.
It can often feel that after high school and after college, there was no system that kept you on the same page.
So you could watch what everyone else was doing and feel completely behind.
This episode is to remind you that you're not late, you're not behind.
Lesson number one.
You're not late, you're on a different timeline.
You're on a different clock.
We measure our worth by comparing timelines with others.
In 1954, psychologist Leon Festinger noticed something simple but profound.
We don't judge ourselves in isolation, We judge ourselves by comparison.
In other words, we don't compare our life or ourselves to who we were yesterday.
We compare our life and ourselves to who everyone else is today, or at least what they tell us.
Think about this.
You might feel fine about your career until you see a classmate on LinkedIn with a fancy new job title.
You might feel proud of your apartment until a friend buys a house.
You might feel good about your relationship until you scroll past someone else's engagement photos.
This is social comparison theory.
Our worth gets measured not against our own progress, but against the timelines of people around us.
This study absolutely blew my mind.
This study at Harvard gave graduating students two options.
They could either earn 50000 a year while everyone else earns 25000, or they could earn 100000 a year while everyone else earns 200000.
Which one do you think they chose?
Which one would you choose?
Most students chose the first option, less actual money, but more status relative to others.
It didn't matter how much they earned in reality.
What mattered was how much they earned compared to the people next to them.
A 2010 study by the University of Warwick found that life satisfaction is more influenced by relative income.
What you make compared to your peers than by absolute income.
Social media has magnified this effect.
According to a study in Computers and Human Behavior, time spent on social media correlated directly with increased feelings of inadequacy due to comparison.
But here's the truth.
Colonel Sanders launched KFC at 65.
There are so many amazing entrepreneurs who built their dream at 40, 50, 60, 70.
But because we live in an influencer economy, we all feel that if we're not multimillionaires by the time we're 21 or 30, that we're too late.
The reality is there is no universal timeline.
What feels like late is usually just different.
Life isn't a race, it's a relay.
Some people sprint early, others save their strength for later.
Some are still building their skills.
Stop comparing your life to the lives of people you don't even want.
Stop comparing your progress to someone else's performance.
Stop comparing your worth to numbers, likes or applause.
Stop comparing because the more you do that, the less you see what's in your favor.
Reminder number two, endings define the story, not the start.
Think about a movie.
It can be slow at the start, uneven in the middle, but if the ending is powerful.
That's what you remember.
You leave the theater saying, wow, that was incredible.
It blew my mind.
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman proved this with his peak end rule.
We judge experiences not by how long they lasted or even by how they began, but by their most intense moment and, above all, how they ended.
In one study, patients undergoing painful medical procedures remembered the experience as less awful if the ending was gentler, even if the procedure itself was longer.
The ending rewrote the story in memory.
And the same is true for our lives, our careers, our relationships.
A rocky start doesn't lock in a bad ending.
A slow decade doesn't cancel out the power of where you finish.
A failure today doesn't stop you from closing with a win tomorrow.
So if you're feeling behind, if you're feeling stuck in the middle, if your start has been messy, remember.
People won't remember every stumble.
They'll remember how you finished.
And most importantly, you haven't finished yet.
Don't quit in the middle of your story.
Keep going until the ending makes your struggle worth it.
Because the science is clear.
It's not the start that defines the story.
It's how you choose to end it according to Kahneman's peak rule.
You can spend half of your life behind and still end happy.
Because that's what matters.
One of my favorite quotes from John Lennon is, everything will be okay in the end.
And if it's not okay, it's not the end.
We end before we've even got started.
We finish and quit before we've even got going.
If you're in the messy middle, you don't have to feel stuck.
No one cares how long it took you.
They care that you kept going.
Reminder number three comfort is the real cause of delay.
People love to say they're behind in life because the world is unfair.
And yes, life can be unfair, but often that's not the real reason we're stuck.
Here's the harsh truth.
We're behind because comfort has us sedated.
You're not behind because the world is unfair.
You're behind because comfort is controlling you.
Take the parable of the frog in warm water.
Don't actually do this.
But if you drop a frog into boiling water, it jumps out immediately.
But put it in lukewarm water and heat it slowly, it won't notice the danger until it's too late.
That's how comfort works.
It doesn't scream, you're wasting your life.
It whispers, you're fine here.
Don't push.
Maybe tomorrow.
Before you know it, years pass.
This is called the status quo bias.
Our brain prefers the safety of what's familiar, even if it's not serving us.
Research shows that, when faced with change, most people would rather stick with a mediocre situation than risk the uncertainty of a better one.
That bias is why people stay in unfulfilling jobs, toxic relationships or unhealthy habits not because they can't change, but because comfort tricks them into not wanting to.
One of my favorite quotes is from Thich Nhat Hanh.
He said we will choose familiar pain over unfamiliar change.
We will choose something that hurts us because it feels familiar, Instead of choosing something that we don't recognize.
That might be better for us.
A 2017 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that over 80 of people choose the default option in experiments, even when better alternatives are available, simply to avoid change.
Gallup surveys show that 85% of employees worldwide are disengaged at work, yet most don't leave.
Not because they lack ability, but because comfort feels safer than growth.
So if you feel behind, don't just blame someone else.
Ask yourself, Am I truly trapped or just comfortably stuck?
Because comfort is more dangerous than failure.
Failure wakes you up.
Comfort puts you to sleep.
You don't get ahead by waiting for perfect conditions.
You get ahead by breaking free from the sedation of comfort.
By choosing growth even when it feels awkward, risky or hard.
Life is unfair, you don't need fair, you need focus.
Life can be unfair, you don't need guarantees, you need grit.
Life can be unfair, you don't need perfect conditions, you need persistence.
Life can be unfair, you don't need equal chances, You can make good choices.
Life can be unfair.
You don't need luck.
You need leverage.
Life can be unfair.
You don't need comfort.
You need consistency.
I agree with you that life can be unfair.
I agree with you that things need to change.
I agree with you that we need to try and change them.
But we also need to take control of our lives.
Number four, most people ahead of you might not actually be ahead of you.
They might actually be unhappy.
We look at people who seem ahead, the ones with the money, the titles, the perfect photos online and assume they're happier.
But here's the counterintuitive truth.
Most people ahead of you could be unhappy.
This is called the hedonic treadmill.
Humans adapt quickly to changes, good or bad.
Promotions, new cars, dream houses, they spike happiness for a moment, then become the new normal.
That's why someone can be ahead on paper, but feel empty.
They're running faster, earning more, collecting trophies, but the treadmill keeps moving, so they never feel satisfied.
The hedonic treadmill shows that external success doesn't equal sustained happiness.
Here's the truth.
That person you're comparing yourself to may look ahead but may feel empty.
Fast success often collapses because the inner foundation wasn't there.
Now, this isn't true for everyone, but it's important to understand that person might be ahead, but at what cost.
At what sacrifice?
Maybe that was a sacrifice they were willing to make, but are you?
Stop envying a highlight reel and start studying the life they're living.
You don't know the price that they paid.
You don't know the sacrifice that they made.
Reminder number five.
Struggling means you're in the arena.
When you're struggling, it's easy to think you're failing.
But the truth is, struggling means you're in the arena.
In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave a famous speech in Paris.
He said, the credit doesn't belong to the critic, but to the one actually in the arena whose faces marred with dust and sweat and blood.
A century later, psychologists are proving him right.
Take startups.
Data shows 90% of new businesses fail.
That's brutal.
But here's the twist.
The people who try, even when they fail, are far more likely to succeed in the next round.
A Harvard Business School study found entrepreneurs who failed the first time were more likely to succeed later than those who never tried at all.
See, that's the interesting thing.
If you're sitting there on the sidelines, you may never ever win.
If you fail the first time, you could probably win the second or third.
Failure wasn't a dead end.
It was evidence they were in the arena, building resilience, building the skill and building knowledge.
Psychologists call this stress inoculation and post-traumatic growth.
Facing challenges conditions the brain and body to handle more.
Struggle strengthens coping mechanisms, emotional endurance and problem-solving skills.
Neuroscience shows that when we're tested, our brain rewires.
The prefrontal cortex responsible for decision-making and regulation actually becomes more resilient through struggle.
Hence, struggling the first time, failing and losing sets you up to win.
A study in psychological science found people with moderate adversity reported better mental health and higher life satisfaction than those with no adversity.
Too smooth a life actually weakens us.
I love this quote from Michael Hopf.
Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men and weak men create hard times.
It's fascinating to me how some of our best times can actually weaken us and how some of our worst times can make us strong and powerful.
Resilience research shows that exposure to struggle predicts adaptability in future crises.
That's the skill you develop.
So if you're struggling, it doesn't mean you're losing.
It means you're brave enough to step into the arena.
The ones who never struggle, they're in the stands, safe, comfortable and potentially stuck.
Struggle isn't a sign of weakness.
It's a sign you're doing something real.
Every bruise is proof you're in the fight.
Every setback is a scar that makes you stronger.
The dust, the sweat, the blood, that's the price of the arena.
And it's preparing you.
Don't confuse trying with failing.
Don't confuse practice with losing.
Don't confuse learning with weakness.
Don't confuse falling behind with being out of the race.
Don't confuse starting over with starting from zero.
And don't confuse scars with shame.
They're proof you showed up.
Reminder number six, you're not behind your developing skills.
When you feel behind in life, it's usually because you're comparing outcomes.
Someone else has the job, the relationship, the house, and you don't.
But here's the truth.
You're not behind.
You're developing skills and you're developing your story.
JK Rowling was a single mother living on welfare before she wrote Harry Potter.
From the outside, she looked behind.
No money, no stability, no career.
But those years weren't wasted.
They gave her the persistence to keep submitting her manuscript after 12 rejections.
They gave her empathy, which poured into her characters.
They gave her grit, which became the foundation of her success.
She wasn't behind.
She was building muscles she couldn't see yet.
Think about the most beautiful building you've ever been inside of.
A home, a castle, a hotel.
No one ever went in that building and said, I love the foundations of this building.
The foundations of this building must be amazing.
They must be so deep.
You never see the foundations.
But the taller the skyscraper, the deeper the foundations.
The taller the building, the deeper the foundations.
Right now, you could be working on the foundations that no one sees, and maybe even you're missing.
And one day when everyone sees that building, you'll remember the foundations and everyone will forget again.
Psychologists call this latent learning knowledge and skills that don't show immediate results, but surface later, when conditions change.
It's also tied to the concept of deliberate practice.
Anders Ericsson research shows that expertise isn't just about time spent, but struggle invested.
The slow unseen grind is what creates mastery.
Ericsson's research found that world-class performers typically accumulate 10000 hours of deliberate practice before breakthroughs.
Most of those hours look invisible from the outside.
You know, sometimes we talk about whether athletes have a gift or whether they developed it.
I promise you, every athlete that I've spoken to, every athlete that I've worked with, the best of the best.
They don't doubt that they have some God-given talent.
But they would be offended if you didn't count the hours they put in.
If you didn't notice the work and struggle they put in, the amount of intensity.
Because when we say God-given, we want to imagine like they didn't do anything.
But if you sat down and spoke to them, they would remind you of showing up.
When I had the opportunity to interview Kobe Bryant, he talked about how he was training before anyone had even walked into the gym, how he was training even after everyone had left.
When you hear the stories of Cristiano Ronaldo, there were players who were coming early to training.
Cristiano Ronaldo was there earlier than them.
That's what it takes.
A study from Stanford found that people often underestimate how much their skills compound over time.
Progress feels slow in the moment, but accelerates later like compound interest.
So when you feel behind, it's not that you're failing, it's that your skills are incubating.
The world only sees outcomes.
But psychology shows that invisible skills resilience persistence, patience are the very traits that predict long-term success.
Stop measuring your life only by outcomes.
Start noticing the skills you're building in the struggle.
Because you're not late, you're preparing.
And preparation always looks like you're behind, until the moment it doesn't.
Thank you so much for listening to today.
I hope you'll pass this on to a friend who may be feeling behind.
As always, I'm sharing with you research science, spiritual wisdom and insights from a 360 degree perspective.
And remember, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode.
I'm forever in your corner, and I'm always rooting for you.
If you love this podcast, you'll love my episode with Lewis Hamilton.
Lewis and I talk about why you should stop chasing society's definition of success and how to be more intentional with your goals.
You don't wanna miss it.
It's not about being perfect.
It's about just every day, one step at a time, trying to be better, trying to do more.
I'm learning a lot about myself.
I have to break myself down in order to be able to be better.
