I can’t count the many times I’ve felt like I was behind all my friends. That my life wasn’t where theirs were or feeling as though I wasn’t doing enough. The problem is that they have a completely different path to take. So here’s how to handle those feelings of being behind in life.
First Step: Congratulate Yourself
Congrats! You’ve made it this far. I really mean that. Recognizing the growth and changes you’ve made in your life is huge. No matter how small it may feel at the time, congratulate yourself because you deserve to recognize the achievements you’ve made.
Next: Have Compassion for Yourself
So many times we are our worst critic. We will rip apart ourselves before we allow ourselves some compassion. The problem with this is that we’re raised to believe that what we’re feeling is not as bad as something else. This leads to a comparison game. Your own experiences can’t be compared to someone’s else’s and they are not allowed to tell you how to feel about that because they didn’t experience them. Only you are allowed to know what you experienced and having compassion for yourself and giving yourself a break will be better in the long term. Comparing yourself is exhausting. Knowing we’re you’re at now is not the end goal and recognizing that and acknowledging this information can help you to form compassion for yourself.
Another Step: Set Some Goals
So we recognized where we are at, we’ve given ourselves some compassion. Now it’s time to set some goals! This is going to help us get started to make changes and reach goals. This is going to help us achieve what we want and not what other people may want. Getting to where we want to be is going to be hard, rough, challenging, and exhausting at points. Knowing the reward is getting unstuck and stopping the comparison cycles is how we’re going to push through. Setting these goals will help us know where we want to be a year from now or six months from now. The most important thing to this step though is to not include comparisons in these goals. Don’t want to own a house because your best friend owns a house. Work to get one because you want to be a homeowner. Make a dream board, write it on paper, put sticky notes throughout your place, just to remind yourself that you will get there and this is what you’re working towards.
Last Step: Believe in Yourself
This one is going to be hard, but I believe in you because I believe in us. You have the power to accomplish whatever you set your mind to and working towards those goals, having compassion, congratulating yourself, are all the steps leading up to this one. You have to believe you can achieve these goals. You have to believe in your dreams and what you want to accomplish. Throw comparison out the window. Your life is your own, don’t compare it to anyone else’s. Support yourself where you want to go in life.