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Speaker 1: Life isn't a race, it's a relay. Some people sprint early,

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Speaker 1: others save their strength for later. Some are still building

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Speaker 1: their skills. Stop comparing your life to the lives of

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Speaker 1: people you don't even want. Stop comparing your progress to

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Speaker 1: someone else's performance. Stop comparing your worth to numbers, likes,

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Speaker 1: or applause. Stop comparing, because the more you do that,

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Speaker 1: the less you see what's in your favor. The number

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Speaker 1: one health and wellness podcast Jetty Jay Shetty. Hey everyone,

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Speaker 1: it's Jay Shetty, author of New York Times bestsellers Think

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Speaker 1: Like a Monk and Eight Rules of Love. I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad you're back here today. We're talking about what to

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Speaker 1: do if you're feeling behind in life. If you felt

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Speaker 1: like everyone else has got their career right, this episode

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Speaker 1: is for you. If you're feeling like you should have

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Speaker 1: been married right now and maybe even ad children, this

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Speaker 1: episode is for you. And if you're feeling like everyone

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Speaker 1: else is crushing it but you've been left behind, this

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Speaker 1: episode is for you. I think it's really natural in

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Speaker 1: life to go from feeling like you were on track

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Speaker 1: to off track. But what's also natural is to feel

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Speaker 1: you were always behind. Now where does this come from.

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Speaker 1: It comes from the fact that for potentially sixteen, eighteen,

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Speaker 1: or twenty one years of your life, if you were

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Speaker 1: in formal education, you moved at the same pace as everyone.

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Speaker 1: So everyone went from seventh grade to eighth grade, a

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Speaker 1: lot of people went from high school to college, and

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Speaker 1: you went from college into your first job. But it

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Speaker 1: was at that point that the timelines changed. Maybe your

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Speaker 1: friend got promoted first and you got promoted last. Maybe

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Speaker 1: your other friend got proposed to first and you're still seeing.

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Speaker 1: Maybe your other friend had an amazing wedding and you're

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Speaker 1: sitting here just trying to plan your weekend. Maybe another

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Speaker 1: friend has already had a baby, and you're here just

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out what you're gonna watch you on

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Speaker 1: Netflix tonight. It can often feel that after high school

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Speaker 1: and after college, there was no system that kept you

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Speaker 1: on the same page, so you could watch what everyone

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Speaker 1: else was doing and feel completely behind. This episode is

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Speaker 1: to remind you that you're not late. You're not behind.

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Speaker 1: Lesser number one, you're not late. You're on a different timeline.

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Speaker 1: You're on a different clock. We measure our worth by

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Speaker 1: comparing timelines with others. In nineteen fifty four, psychologist Leon

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Speaker 1: Festinger noticed something simple but profound. We don't judge ourselves

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Speaker 1: in isolation. We judge ourselves by comparison. In other words,

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Speaker 1: we don't compare our life or ourselves to who we

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Speaker 1: were yesterday. We compare our life and ourselves to who

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Speaker 1: everyone else is today, or at least what they tell us.

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Speaker 1: Think about this. You might feel fine about your career

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Speaker 1: until you see a classmate on LinkedIn with a fancy

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Speaker 1: new job title. You might feel proud of your apartment

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Speaker 1: until a friend buys a house. You might feel good

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Speaker 1: about your relationship until you scroll past someone else's engagement photos.

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Speaker 1: This is social comparison theory. Our worth gets measured not

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Speaker 1: against our own progress, but against the timelines of people

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Speaker 1: around us. This study absolutely blew my mind. This study

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Speaker 1: at Harvard gave graduating students two options. They could either

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Speaker 1: earn fifty thousand dollars a year while everyone else earns

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Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars, or they could earn one hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year while everyone else earns two hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Which one do you think they chose? Which

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Speaker 1: one would you choose? Most students chose the first option,

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Speaker 1: less actual money, but more status relative to others. It

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Speaker 1: didn't matter how much they earned. In reality, what mattered

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Speaker 1: was how much they earned compared to the people next

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Speaker 1: to them. A twenty ten study by the University of

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Speaker 1: Warwick found that life satisfaction is more influenced by relative

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Speaker 1: income what you make compared to your peers than by

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Speaker 1: absolute income. Social media has magnified this effect. According to

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Speaker 1: a study in Computers in human behavior, time spent on

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Speaker 1: social media correlated directly with increased feelings of inadequacy due

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Speaker 1: to comparison. But here's the truth. Colonel Sanders launched KFC

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Speaker 1: at sixty five. There are so many amazing entrepreneurs who

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Speaker 1: built their dream at forty fifty, sixty seventy. But because

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Speaker 1: we live in an influencer economy, we all feel that

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Speaker 1: if we're not multimillionaires by the time were twenty one

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Speaker 1: or thirty, that were too late. The reality is there

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Speaker 1: is no universal timeline. What feels like late is usually

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Speaker 1: just different. Life isn't a race, it's a relay. Some

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Speaker 1: people sprint early, others save their strength for later. Some

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Speaker 1: are still building their skills. Stop comparing your life to

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Speaker 1: the lives of people you don't even want. Stop comparing

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Speaker 1: your progress to someone else's performance. Stop comparing your worth

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Speaker 1: to numbers, likes or applause. Stop comparing, because the more

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Speaker 1: you do that, the less you see what's in your favor.

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Speaker 1: Reminder number two. Endings define the story, not the start.

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Speaker 1: Think about a movie. It can be slow at the start,

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Speaker 1: un't even in the middle. But if the ending is powerful,

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Speaker 1: that's what you remember. You leave the theater saying, Wow,

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Speaker 1: that was incredible. It blew my mind. Psychologist Daniel Carneman

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Speaker 1: proved this with his peak end rule. We judge experiences

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Speaker 1: not by how long they lasted, or even by how

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Speaker 1: they began, but by their most intense moment, and above all,

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Speaker 1: how they ended. In one study, patients undergoing painful medical

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Speaker 1: procedures remembered the experience as less awful if the ending

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Speaker 1: was gentler, even if the procedure itself was longer. The

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Speaker 1: ending rewrote the story in memory. And the same is

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Speaker 1: true for our lives, our careers, our relationships. A rocky

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Speaker 1: start doesn't lock in a bad ending. A slow decade

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Speaker 1: doesn't cancel out the power of where you finished. A

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Speaker 1: failure today doesn't stop you from closing with the wind tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: So if you're feeling behind, if you're feeling stuck in

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Speaker 1: the middle, if your start has been messy, remember people

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Speaker 1: won't remember every stumble, they'll remember how you finished, and

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Speaker 1: most importantly, you haven't finished yet. Don't quit in the

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Speaker 1: middle of your story. Keep going until the ending makes

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Speaker 1: your struggle worth it, because the science is clear, it's

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Speaker 1: not the start that defines the story, it's how you

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Speaker 1: choose to end it. According to Carneman's peak rule, you

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Speaker 1: can spend half of your life behind and still end happy,

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Speaker 1: because that's what matters. One of my favorite quotes from

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Speaker 1: John Lennon is everything will be okay in the end,

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Speaker 1: and if it's not okay, it's not the end. We

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Speaker 1: end before we've even got started. We finish and quit

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Speaker 1: before we've even got going. If you're in the messy middle,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to feel stuck. No one cares how

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Speaker 1: long it took you. They care that you kept going.

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Speaker 1: Reminder number three, comfort is the real cause of delay.

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Speaker 1: People love to say they're behind in life because the

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Speaker 1: world is unfair, and yes, life can be unfair, but

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Speaker 1: often that's not the real reason we're stuck. Here's the

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Speaker 1: harsh truth. We're behind because comfort has us sedated. You're

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Speaker 1: not behind because the world is unfair. You're behind because

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Speaker 1: comfort is controlling. You take the parable of the frog

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Speaker 1: in warm water. Don't actually do this, but if you

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Speaker 1: drop a frog into boiling water, it jumps out immediately.

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Speaker 1: But put it in lukewarm water and heat it slowly.

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Speaker 1: It won't notice the danger until it's too late. That's

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Speaker 1: how comfort works. It doesn't scream you're wasting your life.

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Speaker 1: It whispers you're fine here, don't push maybe tomorrow. Before

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Speaker 1: you know it, years pass. This is called the status

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Speaker 1: quote bias. Our brain prefers the safety of what's familiar,

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Speaker 1: even if it's not serving us. Research shows that when

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Speaker 1: faced with change, most people would rather stick with a

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Speaker 1: mediocre situation than risk the uncertainty of a better one.

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Speaker 1: That bias is why people stay in unfulfilling jobs, toxic relationships,

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Speaker 1: or unhealthy habits, not because they can't change, but because

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Speaker 1: comfort tricks them into not wanting to. One of my

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Speaker 1: favorite quotes is from Tik nat Han. He said, we

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Speaker 1: will choose familiar pain over unfamiliar change. We will choose

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Speaker 1: something that hurts us because it feels familiar, instead of

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Speaker 1: choosing something that we don't recognize that might be better

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Speaker 1: for us. A twenty seventeen study published in Frontiers in

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Speaker 1: Psychology found that over eighty percent of people choose the

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Speaker 1: default option in experiments even when better alternatives are available,

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Speaker 1: simply to avoid change. Gallup surveys show that eighty five

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Speaker 1: percent of employees worldwide are disengaged at work, yet most

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Speaker 1: don't leave, not because they lackability, but because comfort feels

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Speaker 1: safer than growth. So if you feel behind, don't just

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Speaker 1: blame someone else. Ask yourself. Am I truly trapped or

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Speaker 1: just comfortably stuck? Because comfort is more dangerous then failure.

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Speaker 1: Failure wakes you up. Comfort puts you to sleep. You

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Speaker 1: don't get ahead by waiting for perfect conditions. You get

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Speaker 1: ahead by breaking free from the sedation of comfort by

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Speaker 1: choosing growth, even when it feels awkward, risky, or hard.

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Speaker 1: Life is unfair. You don't need fair You need focus.

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Speaker 1: Life can be unfair. You don't need guarantees, you need grit.

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Speaker 1: Life can be unfair. You don't need perfect conditions, you

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Speaker 1: need persistence. Life can be unfair. You don't need equal chances.

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Speaker 1: You can make good choices. Life can be unfair. You

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Speaker 1: don't need luck, you need leverage. Life can be unfair.

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Speaker 1: You don't need comfort, you need consistency. I agree with

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Speaker 1: you that life can be unfair. I agree with you

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Speaker 1: that things need to change. I agree with you that

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Speaker 1: we need to try and change them, but we also

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Speaker 1: need to take control of our life. Number four, Most

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Speaker 1: people ahead of you might not actually be ahead of you.

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Speaker 1: They might actually be unhappy. We look at people who

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Speaker 1: seem ahead, the ones with the money, the titles, the

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Speaker 1: perfect photos online, and assume they're happier. But here's the

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Speaker 1: counterintuitive truth. Most people ahead of you could be unhappy.

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Speaker 1: This is called the hedonic treadmill. Humans adapt quickly to changes,

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Speaker 1: good or bad. Promotions, new cars, dream houses. They spike

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Speaker 1: happiness for a moment, then become the new normal. That's

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Speaker 1: why someone can be ahead on paper but feel empty.

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Speaker 1: They're running faster, earning more, collecting trophies, but the treadmill

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Speaker 1: keeps moving, so they never feel satisfied. The hedonic treadmill

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Speaker 1: shows that external success doesn't equal sustained happiness. Here's the truth.

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Speaker 1: That person you're comparing yourself to may look ahead, but

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Speaker 1: may feel empty. Fast success often collapses because the inner

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Speaker 1: foundation wasn't there. Now, this isn't true for everyone, but

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Speaker 1: it's important to understand that person might be ahead, but

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Speaker 1: at what cost? At what sacrifice? Maybe that was a

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Speaker 1: sacrifice they were willing to make. But are you stop

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Speaker 1: envying a highlight reel and start studying the life they're living.

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Speaker 1: You don't know the price that they paid. You don't

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Speaker 1: know the sacrifice that they made. Reminder number five, Struggling

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Speaker 1: means you're in the arena. When you're struggling, it's easy

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Speaker 1: to think you're failing, but the truth is struggling means

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Speaker 1: you're in the arena. In nineteen ten, Theodore Roosevelt gave

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Speaker 1: a famous speech in Paris. He said, the credit doesn't

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Speaker 1: belong to the critic, but to the one actually in

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Speaker 1: the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat

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Speaker 1: and blood. A century later, psychologists are proving him right.

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Speaker 1: Take startups. Data shows ninety percent of new businesses fail.

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Speaker 1: That's brutal. But here's the twist. The people who try,

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Speaker 1: even when they fail, are far more likely to succeed

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Speaker 1: in the next round. A Harvard Business School study found

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Speaker 1: entrepreneurs who failed the first time were more likely to

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Speaker 1: succeed later than those who never tried at all. See

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Speaker 1: that's the interesting thing. If you're sitting there on the sidelines,

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Speaker 1: you may never ever win. If you fail the first time,

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Speaker 1: you could probably win the second or third. Failure wasn't

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Speaker 1: a dead end. It was evidence they were in the arena,

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Speaker 1: building resilience, building the skill, and building knowledge. Psychologists call

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Speaker 1: this stress inoculation and post traumatic growth. Facing challenges conditions

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Speaker 1: the brain and body to handle more. Struggle strengthens coping mechanisms,

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Speaker 1: emotional endurance, and problem solving skills. Neuroscience shows that when

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Speaker 1: we're tested, our brain rewires. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for

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Speaker 1: decision making and regulation, actually becomes more resilient through struggle. Hence,

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Speaker 1: struggling the first time, failing and losing sets you up

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Speaker 1: to win. A study in psychological science found people with

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Speaker 1: moderate adversity reported better mental health and higher life satisfaction

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Speaker 1: than those with no adversity. Too smooth a life actually

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Speaker 1: weakens us. I love this quote from Michael Hopp. Hard

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Speaker 1: times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good

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Speaker 1: times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

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Speaker 1: It's fascinating to me how some of our best times

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Speaker 1: can actually weaken us, and how some of our worst

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Speaker 1: times can make us strong and powerful. Resilience research shows

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Speaker 1: that exposure to struggle predicts adaptability in future crises. That's

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Speaker 1: the skill you develop. So if you're struggling, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean you're losing. It means you're brave enough to step

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Speaker 1: into the arena. The ones who never struggle, they're in

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Speaker 1: the stands, safe, comfortable, and potentially. Struggle isn't a sign

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Speaker 1: of weakness. It's a sign you're doing something real. Every

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Speaker 1: bruise is proof you're in the fight. Every setback is

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Speaker 1: a scar that makes you stronger. The dust, the sweat,

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Speaker 1: the blood. That's the price of the arena, and it's

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Speaker 1: preparing you. Don't confuse trying with failing. Don't confuse practice

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Speaker 1: with losing. Don't confuse learning with weakness. Don't confuse falling

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Speaker 1: behind with being out of the race. Don't confuse starting

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Speaker 1: over with starting from zero. And don't confuse scars with shame.

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Speaker 1: Their proof you showed up. Reminder number six, you're not behind,

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Speaker 1: you're developing skills. When you feel behind in life, it's

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Speaker 1: usually because you're comparing outcomes. Someone else has the job,

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Speaker 1: the relationship the house, and you don't. But here's the truth.

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Speaker 1: You're not behind. You're developing skills, and you're developing your story. JK.

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Speaker 1: Rowling was a single mother living on welfare before she

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Speaker 1: wrote Harry Potter. From the outside, she looked behind, no money,

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Speaker 1: no stability, no career. But those years weren't wasted. They

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Speaker 1: gave her the persistence to keep submitting her manuscript after

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Speaker 1: twelve rejections. They gave her empathy, which poured into her characters.

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Speaker 1: They gave her grit, which became the foundation of her success.

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Speaker 1: She wasn't behind, she was building muscles she couldn't see yet.

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Speaker 1: Think about the most beautiful building you've ever been inside

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Speaker 1: of a home, a castle, a hotel. No one ever

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Speaker 1: went in that building and said, I love the foundations

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Speaker 1: of this building. The foundations of this building must be amazing.

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Speaker 1: They must be so deep you never see the foundation.

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Speaker 1: But the taller the skyscraper, the deeper the foundations. The

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Speaker 1: taller the building, the deeper the foundations. Right now, you

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Speaker 1: could be working on the foundations that no one sees,

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Speaker 1: and maybe even you're missing, And one day, when everyone

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Speaker 1: sees that building, you'll remember the foundations and everyone will

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Speaker 1: forget again. Psychologists call this latent learning, knowledge and skills

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Speaker 1: that don't show immediate results but surface later when conditions change.

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Speaker 1: It's also tied to the concept of deliberate practice, and

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Speaker 1: as Ericson research shows that expertise isn't just about time spent,

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Speaker 1: but struggle invested. The slow, unseen grind is what creates mastery.

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Speaker 1: Ericsson's research found that world class performers typically accumulate ten

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Speaker 1: thousand hours of del practice before breakthroughs. Most of those

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Speaker 1: hours look invisible from the outside. You know, sometimes we

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Speaker 1: talk about whether athletes have a gift or whether they

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Speaker 1: developed it. I promise you every athlete that I've spoken to,

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Speaker 1: every athlete that I've worked with, the best of the best,

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Speaker 1: they don't doubt that they have some God given talent.

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Speaker 1: But they would be offended if you didn't count the

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Speaker 1: hours they put in, if you didn't notice the work

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Speaker 1: and struggle they put in, the amount of intensity, because

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Speaker 1: when we say God given, we want to imagine like

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Speaker 1: they didn't do anything. But if you sat down and

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Speaker 1: spoke to them, they would remind you of showing up.

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Speaker 1: When I had the opportunity to interview Kobe Bryant. He

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Speaker 1: talked about how he was training before anyone had even

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Speaker 1: walked into the gym, how he was training even after

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Speaker 1: everyone had left. When you hear the stories of Christiano Ronaldo,

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Speaker 1: there were players who were coming early to training. Christiano

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Speaker 1: Ronaldo was there earlier than them. That's what it takes.

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Speaker 1: A study from Stanford found that people often underestimate how

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Speaker 1: much their skills compound over time. Progress feels slow in

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Speaker 1: the moment, but accelerates later like compound interest. So when

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Speaker 1: you feel behind, it's not that you're failing, it's that

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Speaker 1: your skills are incubating. The world only sees outcomes, but

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Speaker 1: psychology shows that invisible skills, resilience, persistence, patience are the

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Speaker 1: very traits that predict long term success. Stop measuring your

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Speaker 1: life only by outcomes. Start noticing the skills you're building

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Speaker 1: in the struggle. Because you're not late, You're preparing, and

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Speaker 1: preparation always looks like you're behind until the moment it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to today. I hope

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Speaker 1: you'll pass this on to a friend who may be

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Speaker 1: feeling behind. As always, I'm sharing with you research, science,

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Speaker 1: spiritual wisdom, and insights from a three to sixty degree perspective,

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Speaker 1: and remember make sure you subscribe to you never miss

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Speaker 1: an episode on Forever in your Corner and I'm always

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Speaker 1: routine for you. If you love this podcast, you love

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Speaker 1: my episode with Lewis Hamilton. Lewis and I talk about

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Speaker 1: why you should stop chasing society's definition of success and

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Speaker 1: how to be more intentional with your goals. You don't

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Speaker 1: want to miss it. It's not about being perfect. It's

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Speaker 1: about just every day, one step at a time, trying

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Speaker 1: to be better, trying to do more. I'm learning a

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Speaker 1: lot about myself, how to break myself down in order

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Speaker 1: to be able to be better