Comparison is the thief of joy – don’t do it to yourself.

I don’t know about you but it’s definitely been a busy start to the year already! Which, whilst exciting, is a reminder of how important it is to pace ourselves and be kind to our minds and our bodies.

Social feeds full of people sharing their achievements can, if we let it, quite quickly feel overwhelming and demoralising if we spend too long looking at everyone else.

Seeing other people shouting about achievements – can often make us feel like we should be doing more, pushing harder, pursing other things. It can make us feel inferior or envious that others appear to be doing more or having more success than us.

Appear is the key word here because it’s important to remember that we all have our own model of the world. What is important to us, is not to others and vice versa, and therefore our goals and measures of success are all very different. Similarly, we all see things, interpret things and internalise things in very different ways based on our individual lives and experience.

This goes to reinforce how comparing your achievements to others is a pointless activity that can lead to the creation of a negative inner dialogue that becomes demotivating. What you believe about other people (based on what you see, read and hear) becomes your reality. In some cases convincing yourself that everyone is doing more or doing better  – this story you are telling yourself, is not the truth – it’s your interpretation based on your model of the world!

The important bit is that you are following your path, so spend some time getting really clear on your goals and what it is that you are chasing. Not someone else’s. And remember that comparison is the thief of joy and is self-sabotaging, doing it will only serve to detract you from what you want to achieve. No more doomscrolling – it’s not helping.

If you can shut out the noise, if you need to delete social apps from your phone take a break for a few weeks. The feed will still be there but the algorithm will also have changed and you will see different content. Mute the prolific posters that you find evoke frustration or anxiety.

I always think spring is a good time to refocus and make a fresh start, make the decision to put your goals and happiness first and spend some time getting really clear on what success looks like for you in the coming weeks and months.