How to stop comparing yourself to others?

TL;DR

To stop comparing yourself to others, change who you measure against and what you are looking at. Compare yourself to where you were in the past rather than to other people, remember that what you see online is a highlight reel, and reserve comparison for narrow, specific things you can actually learn from.

Insights

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says comparing your whole life to someone else's, their money, their marriage, their career, mostly steals your joy, because you are weighing very different lives against each other. He notes that comparison is only useful when it is narrow and specific: looking at how someone does one particular thing so you can pick up a tactic or a skill. Keep it to that, and drop the broad life-versus-life scoring.

Psychotherapist Amy Morin offers a better yardstick: your own past self. Instead of measuring where you stand next to other people, she suggests looking at how far you have come from where you were yesterday, last month, or a few years ago. Treating your earlier self as the person to beat keeps the focus on real progress you control.

Author Robin Sharma reminds us to remember what we are looking at online. He points out that people post their highlight reel, not their ordinary days, so you end up comparing your behind-the-scenes to someone else's curated version. When you catch yourself feeling behind, Sharma suggests reading another person's success as proof that something is possible rather than as a verdict on you.