Feel Behind in Your Career, Relationship or Life? THIS Is the Episode You Need To Stop Comparing Yourself

Do you ever feel behind in life? What are you comparing yourself to? Today, Jay shares a powerful reminder for anyone who feels like they’re behind in life. Maybe you’re comparing your career path to a friend’s promotion, your relationship status to someone’s engagement photos, or your lifestyle to highlight reels on social media. Jay explains how natural it is to feel this way, especially after school, when the timelines that once kept us moving together begin to split apart. Drawing on social comparison theory, he shows how easily our self-worth can become tied to where others seem to be, instead of honoring the unique path we’re on. Jay reframes the idea of being “behind,” not as a failure but an essential part of growth. Through psychology and real-life examples, he emphasizes that endings matter more than beginnings, and that setbacks are not signs of weakness, but proof that we’re actively building resilience. He challenges our attachment to comfort, which can quietly keep us stuck, and reminds us that what feels like delay is really unseen preparation for the skills and foundations that lead to future success. Jay shifts how we measure progress, from chasing empty wins to recognizing that grit matters more than perfection. In this episode, you'll learn: How to Redefine Success on Your Timeline How to Recognize False Progress in Others How to See Struggle as Strength How to Turn Setbacks into Resilience How to Trust That You’re Not Late The struggles you face today are shaping your resilience, your wisdom, and your strength for tomorrow. You are not late, you are not lost, you are simply on your own timeline. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:52 Do You Feel Behind in Life? 02:37 #1: You Aren't Late, You're on a Different Timeline 06:07 #2: Endings Define the Story 08:42 #3: Comfort is What Really Keeps You Stuck 12:27 #4: Progress Doesn’t Guarantee Happiness 14:01 #5: Struggling Is Proof You’re Growing 17:49 #6: You're not Behind, You're Developing Skills See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 0:44Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on.

• 1:29Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them. Whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe. Listing items is a quick and simple process, and once something sells, Vinted creates a prepaid shipping label for you. And the best part, there are no seller fees, so you keep what you earn. It's a simple way to clear out your closet, be less wasteful, and maybe make some extra money along the way. And if you've been thinking about a wardrobe refresh, this can make it feel a little more worthwhile. You're not just letting go of clothes, you're getting more value from what you already have.

• 3:00Jay Shetty?

  Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. 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.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  The number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Shetty.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  The one, the only Jay Shetty.

• 3:52Jay Shetty?

  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?

• 4:36Jay Shetty?

  It comes from the fact that for potentially sixteen, eighteen, or twenty-one 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 gonna watch on Netflix tonight.

• 5:21Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 6:04Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 6:48Jay Shetty?

  This study absolutely blew my mind. This study at Harvard gave graduating students two options: They could either earn fifty thousand dollars a year, while everyone else earns twenty-five thousand dollars.

• 7:04Jay Shetty?

  Or they could earn a hundred thousand dollars a year while everyone else earns two hundred thousand dollars. 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.

• 7:49Jay Shetty?

  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 sixty-five. There are so many amazing entrepreneurs who built their dream at forty, fifty, sixty, seventy. But because we live in an influencer economy, we all feel that if we're not multimillionaires by the time we're twenty-one or thirty, 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.

• 8:33Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 9:18Jay Shetty?

  You leave the theatre 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.

• 10:00Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 10:45Jay Shetty?

  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 favourite 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.

• 11:30Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 12:12Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 12:52Jay Shetty?

  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."

• 13:16Jay Shetty?

  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 eighty percent of people choose the default option in experiments, even when better alternatives are available, simply to avoid change. Gallup surveys show that eighty-five percent 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.

• 14:02Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 14:48Jay Shetty?

  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 life.

• 15:24Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast.

• 16:07Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

• 16:52Jay Shetty?

  We talk a lot about intentional decision-making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

• 17:33Jay Shetty?

  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,

• 18:17Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 19:00Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 19:26Jay Shetty?

  He said the credit doesn't belong to the critic, but to the one actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood. A century later, psychologists are proving him right. Take startups. Data shows ninety percent 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.

• 20:12Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 20:58Jay Shetty?

  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 Hopp. "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times."

• 21:30Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 22:15Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 22:55Jay Shetty?

  Reminder number six, you're not behind, you're 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. J.K. 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.

• 23:39Jay Shetty?

  They gave her grit, which became the foundation of her success. She wasn't behind, she was building muscles she couldn't see yet.

• 23:49Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 24:32Jay Shetty?

  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. And as 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 10,000 hours of deliberate practice before breakthroughs. Most of those hours look invisible from the outside.

• 25:17Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 26:01Jay Shetty?

  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.

• 26:46Jay Shetty?

  Stop measuring your life only by outcomes. Start noticing the skills you are 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.

• 27:29Jay Shetty?

  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 want to miss it.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Like, 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.

• 27:50Speaker 04

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• 28:20Speaker 05

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig. On October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 28:41Speaker 05

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 28:45Speaker 05

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only begins October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 28:50Speaker 06

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• 29:00Speaker 05

  Espolone Tequila, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof. Copyright 2026, Camp Valley America, New York, New York. Drink responsibly.