If you’re starting this year feeling stuck, late, or behind in life, this episode gently reminds you that you’re not late, you’re right where you’re supposed to be.
Jay unpacks a quiet truth many of us carry: almost everyone feels behind in love, career, money, or purpose, even when it looks like they’re winning. We compare what we’re struggling with privately to what others show publicly and end up measuring ourselves by timelines that were never real to begin with. When you see only the surface of others’ success, it’s easy to believe you’re behind when in reality, you’re simply on a different path.
Jay reframes what “behind” really means. There is no universal schedule for success, fulfillment, or clarity. Most people don’t find their direction until much later than we’re led to believe, and emotional maturity, financial stability, and creative breakthroughs often arrive in midlife, not early adulthood. The pressure you feel isn’t proof of failure, it’s often the result of unrealistic expectations you set when you didn’t yet know who you’d become. Feeling lost, especially in your twenties and thirties, isn’t a flaw, it’s part of being human.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to Stop Feeling Behind in Life
How to Break Free from Comparison
How to Build Confidence in Your Own Season
How to Let Go of Outdated Success Timelines
How to Turn Invisible Growth into Strength
How to Move Forward Without Rushing Decisions
Life isn’t asking you to move faster, it’s asking you to move honestly. Trust the season you’re in, honor the lessons it’s teaching you, and keep showing up with consistency and self-belief.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
00:58 Do You Feel Behind in Life?
01:49 #1: We Compare Our Insides to Other People's Outsides
04:27 #2: You’re Focused on a Timeline that Doesn't Exist
06:41 #3: We Are Wired for Anxiety About Feeling Behind
09:20 You Are Exactly Where You’re Supposed to Be
12:53 What to Do When You Feel Behind
13:33 Step #1: Compare Less, Connect More
14:16 Step #2: Rewrite Your Timeline
15:49 Step #3: Identify Your Season
16:54 Step #4: Define Progress as Consistency Not Speed
17:42 Step #5: Ask the Question that Changes Everything
18:20 Five Practical Steps to Take This Year
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I always felt stuck behind and late until I did this.
If you're starting this year already feeling behind, you are
not alone, and more importantly, you are not behind. Let
me tell you a fact most people don't know. Studies
show that nearly seven out of ten adults feel behind
(00:22):
on their life timeline, behind in love, behind in their career, behind, financially,
behind where they should be by now. And here's the twist.
Everyone is comparing themselves to everyone else, and everyone thinks
they're losing. People fascinate me. The married people envy the
single people. The single people envy the married people. People
(00:47):
with careers envy people who are entrepreneurs, people who are entrepreneurs,
envy the people with stability. No one feels ahead. Everyone
feels behind. How many of you listening right now feel
like you're behind in one of these areas. You're starting
the year and you're already thinking, look at that person
they got promoted last year, Look at that person they're
(01:09):
making a difference. Look at that person they've got their job.
Look at that person they've got a few more followers
than me. Today, I want to show you number one,
why you feel behind psychologically and culturally. Number two why
your timeline is not late statistically and scientifically, and number three,
(01:31):
how to stop letting comparison ruin your year. I also
want to give you the steps to rebuild confidence, momentum,
and purpose all in this episode. This episode might be
one of the most important ones you hear all year.
Let's begin. Let's talk about the truth about why you
(01:51):
feel behind. There are three main reasons we feel behind,
and none of them are your fault. Reason Number one,
we compare our insides to other people's outsides. There's something
called the highlight bias. You see people's weddings, promotions, vacations, homes, milestones,
(02:13):
but you never see their breakdowns, their failures, their doubts,
their setbacks, or their insecurities. Statistically, people overestimate how happy
others are and underestimate how happy they are. You're comparing
your confusion to someone else's filter. Now wonder you feel behind.
(02:35):
Stop comparing yourself to others. You don't know the battles
they hide or the bridges they had to burn to
get there. Stop comparing yourself to others. Your timeline is
custom made. Theirs was never designed to fit you. Stop
comparing yourself to others. Success looks different on everyone, and
(02:57):
so does the struggle. Stop comparing yourself to others. Your
progress is happening quietly internally, in ways no photo or
post can capture, and stop comparing yourself to others. You're
not here to match anyone. You're here to become the
person only you can be. So the reason we compare
(03:20):
ourselves is because we don't know enough context. If you
only see someone's post and assume you know them, you
know nothing. If you only see someone's tweet and assume
you know them, you know nothing. If you only see
someone's status update and think you know them, you know nothing.
(03:40):
When you envy someone, you have to learn to study them.
When you study someone, you get context. And when you
get context, you realize you're more likely in the same
place or even better off. Robin Roberts famously said if
everyone throw their problems into a pile, that immediately he
grabbed theirs back. We compare the worst of our lives
(04:05):
to the best of everyone else's. Of course, you feel
behind when if you were actually able to get to
know people deeply. This is one of the reasons why
having a shallow understanding of lots of people is so
harmful because when you have a shallow understanding of everyone,
you think everyone's doing better. When you have a deeper
understanding of everyone, you recognize you're all kind of going
(04:26):
through the same thing. Reason number two. You were sold
a timeline that doesn't exist. Graduate by twenty two, career
by twenty five, married by thirty, kids by thirty five,
successful by thirty seven, fulfilled by forty. This timeline was
invented in the nineteen fifties and hasn't been real for decades. Today,
(04:49):
the average age of marriage is the highest it's been
in history. Most people change careers three to seven times.
People find their purpose in their thirties, fifties, even sixties.
The average age of a successful entrepreneur is not twenty one,
it's forty five.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
You are not late.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The timeline you're comparing yourself to is outdated. You're not late.
You might be moving slower because you've had more to carry,
not because you're doing something wrong. You're not late. Half
the people you think are ahead of you just feel
as confused inside. You're not late. You're taking a real path,
(05:32):
not the imaginary one you thought you'd be on at eighteen.
You're not late. You're building your life while figuring yourself out,
and that takes time for everyone. See this idea that
there was a perfect time to have kids, a perfect
time to get married, a perfect time to win it.
Life isn't real. Everyone's timeline is absolutely different. And when
(05:58):
we tried to live our life based on what the
people around us are doing, think about how life would
go for a second, if you did everything at the
time everyone around you did it, how would that feel.
That means you'd have to rush getting married to someone
you don't love because you hadn't found them yet. You
had to rush having children because everyone else was having
(06:19):
them and you felt behind. If you do things that
you don't want to do just because you feel behind,
you will never be happy in your life because decisions
should be made when you're happy, when you're ready, when
you're peaceful, when you're content, when you're excited, not when
you're scared or anxious or nervous. Reason number three is
(06:43):
our brain is wired for falling behind anxiety you're Scientists
found that humans experienced something called temporal comparison stress. We
don't just compare ourselves to other people, We compare ourselves
to the person we thought we'd be by now. Think
about that for a second. You don't just feel behind
(07:06):
because of other people. You feel behind because of the
pressure you put on yourself. We feel behind not because
life is wrong, but because our expectations were unrealistic. We
feel behind because we thought we'd be in this position
by now, and everything else is just a reminder of
(07:28):
our inadequacy. But remember when you made that timeline, you
didn't really know that much. How many of us at
eighteen thought we knew when we were getting married. How
many of us at twenty five thought we knew when
we'd have kids. How many of us at fifteen thought
we knew when we'd be successful. But what was that
based on. It wasn't based on reality.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It was just an.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Imaginary, made up version of what we thought life was
going to be. Like, here's the truth. No one predicts
their life accurately, not one single person. Your plan wasn't wrong,
It just didn't account for the fact that you're human, right.
Your plan wasn't weak. It's just that you didn't realize
(08:10):
there was so much more to life. Your plan wasn't
slow or unorganized, it was just you learned so much
more about yourself moving forward. Maybe you knew exactly what
you wanted to be at eighteen, but then when you
actually became it and you did that job, you realized
there was nothing like what you wanted. There's nothing wrong
(08:31):
with that. You didn't make a mistake, you didn't go
off track. You actually just discovered what that passion felt like.
In reality. I grew up in my teens thinking I
may want to be a graphic designer or an art
direct I loved it. I never actually did that for work.
I used it a lot as a hobby. I never
actually did it for work, But I think if I
would have, I would have figured out quite quickly that
(08:52):
that wasn't me. I ended up becoming a consultant. That
was definitely not me. But if I sit there and
I go wow, and I was there at this point,
I was twenty six years old. I was a consultant.
It wasn't what I wanted to do. And if I
thought to myself, I messed up, I'm behind. What can
I do now, I'll never be here today. I'm here
(09:12):
with you today because at twenty eight I decided to
move in the direction of what I cared about.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And you can too.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Let me give you some real evidence. Most people arrive
later than you think. Research shows that the average person
finds career clarity in their mid thirties. The average person
hits financial stability in their late thirties to mid forties.
Creative breakthroughs often happen around age forty to fifty. Emotional
(10:05):
maturity peaks around forty five to fifty five. If anything,
you might be ahead of the schedule, but you're definitely
not behind. The evidence shows that just because we hear
a couple of stories of a twenty one year old
billionaire and a thirty year old who's really mature, and
a thirty five year old who saved the planet, we
(10:25):
start measuring ourselves against these one percent or even less
than not recognizing the majority of people are in exactly
the same space we are. Here's some more evidence life
satisfaction has a use shape. Studies across one hundred and
thirty countries show a consistent pattern. Life satisfaction dips in
your twenties and thirties, then rises in your forties, fifties,
(10:50):
and sixties, Meaning feeling lost now isn't a flaw. It's universal.
It's part of the human curve, and the reason why
I say that is because your twenties and thirties are
also when you put so much pressure on yourself. You
care more about what people think, You think you should
be somewhere else, You care more about what other people
are doing. As you start to lose that as you
(11:12):
get older, it just has less of a hold in
control over you. But if we were able to step
back and go, I want to put positive pressure on
myself but not break myself. It's almost like being in
the gym and lifting weights. You want to lift enough
to challenge yourself and push yourself, but not to hurt yourself.
Sometimes the pressure we put on our mind is hurting us,
(11:33):
not helping us. And here's even some more evidence late
bloomers are more common than the early ones. Oprah got
her show at thirty two. Vera Wang became a designer
at forty. Tony Morrison published her first book at thirty nine.
Ray Krok franchised McDonald's at fifty two. Success is not early.
(11:56):
Success is aligned. You're not behind you unfolding. If all
of those people just felt they were behind the whole time,
they wouldn't have been present enough to capture the opportunity
at that time. Your goal is not to think about
whether you're ahead or behind. And here's the scary thing.
Here's actually the biggest mistake we make. If you believe
(12:18):
you're a head, it means you'll fall behind one day,
And if you feel you're behind, you'll always want to
be ahead, but then scared that someone else will get ahead.
It's a slippery slope to think that everything is a
ranking system. It is a slippery slope to live that way,
to think that you're ahead or behind, because then you'll
(12:39):
feel worse when you're behind. You'll feel insecure when you're
at the top. If people feel that life is a race,
you'll feel insecure and anxious at the top, and you'll
feel depressed and disappointed at the bottom. When you realize
that life is not a race, it is simply your path,
you don't feel the insecurity of being number one, and
(13:01):
you don't feel the depression of being lost. You recognize
you a where you're meant to be doing what you're
supposed to do. Because we have to recognize that feeling
behind can be dangerous. When you believe you're behind, you
do three things. Number One, you rush decisions you should
take slowly wrong jobs, wrong relationships, wrong priorities. Number two.
(13:26):
You quit things too early. You assume slow progress means
wrong direction. Number three, you stop enjoying the life you
actually have. You live inside imaginary pressure instead of real possibility.
Feeling behind doesn't speed you up. It steals your piece
and sabotages your progress.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
So what do we do?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
How do you stop feeling behind? Here are the practical
frameworks that actually work. Framework number one. Compare less, connect more.
Don't ask where where are they compared to me? Ask
where am I compared to yesterday? Your only real competition
is the person you were twenty four hours ago. This
(14:12):
is one of the best mindsets I could possibly give. You.
Only measure yourself based on how you're growing compared to
where you want to be and who you are. Stop
living your life thinking about where everyone else is or
what you thought you'd be at fifteen and now you're
thirty years old. Have you grown since yesterday? Have you
grown since last week? Are you taking the steps to
(14:34):
do that? That's where your focus should be. Framework number two.
Rewrite your timeline. Take a piece of paper and write,
my life is not late, it's layered. And now ask
yourself what did I survive? What did I learn? What
did I build internally that no one can see? When
(14:55):
I lived as a month for three years, it wasn't
available to everyone else. Everyone thought I was behind, Everyone
thought I was lost. Everyone around me moved forward, but
I was making real internal progress that no one else
could see. That was progress. It was invisible, but real.
(15:17):
And most of your growth happens before anyone sees the results.
So just because everyone can't see what you're doing, it
doesn't mean that it's not valuable. And not everything that
is valuable can be seen, and not everything that is
seen is valuable. Just because you can see what someone's
doing in the success they're having, that doesn't mean they're ahead,
(15:40):
because you could be growing underground and you're about to grow.
I met so many people when I first started creating
content who are far ahead of me and followers far ahead,
and they didn't take me seriously because they didn't think
that I would take it seriously. I wanted to collaborate
with them, I wanted to work with them, but they
(16:00):
didn't want to do that with me because I wasn't
big enough, not realizing that if we think we're bigger,
or better or ahead or behind will never grow? Framework
number three, identify your season. You're not behind, You're in
a season. Are you in a season of healing? Are
you in a season of rebuilding? Learning, transitioning, p resting, experimenting.
(16:28):
You can't compare your season one to someone else's season seven. Also,
all of these cycles have a different pace. Healing has
a different pace to transitioning. Transitioning has a different pace
to performing. Performing has a different pace to growing, learning, building?
(16:49):
Which season are you in? Get really clear about what
twenty twenty six is about for you? Is twenty twenty
six about healing, because then that's going to look very
different to someone who's building. I've had years when we
have been planting seeds, and I won't see the success
of that in this year. I'll only see it in
the year after. Is my year of failure? Because I
(17:11):
didn't see it? Definitely not. Framework number four. Define progress
as consistency, not speed. If you take one step every
day this year, you'll be three hundred and sixty five
steps ahead by next January. That's transformation, quiet and consistence.
(17:32):
Progress is a direction, not a deadline. So let's talk
about speed. Let's say for one month you're at a
speed ten out of ten, but for the rest of
the year, you're at a zero out of ten. Guess
what you were at five out of ten for the
whole year. But if you are just a consistent six
or seven, you're already beating the speed of one month
at ten out of ten. Consistency beats speed. If you'll
(17:56):
eventually run out of speed, if you'll run out of
speed and run out of steam, consistency is always going
to win. Framework Number five. Ask the question that changes everything.
Instead of asking why am I behind? Ask what is
this season preparing me for? The answer will change the
way you see your timeline. You have to reframe it.
(18:21):
You have to look at it from a different angle.
There have been so many years where everyone else could
think I haven't achieved anything, and I'm not moving forward,
but we're planning the seeds for next year. There are
times in my life where I thought I was falling behind,
but now I realize I was actually falling into place.
I want to share with you the five practical steps
(18:43):
to take this year. Number one, make a this is
my season statement. Define where you are and own it.
Don't worry about anyone else's season. What season are you in?
Number two remove three social media accounts that trigger comparison.
Protect your mind. If you keep comparing yourself to everyone,
(19:06):
you will always feel behind. It is not your fault,
it's how we're wired. Number three set one goal for
ninety days, not the year. Shorter cycles equals more wins,
more progress. Number four track actions, not outcomes. We often
think the outcome decides whether we did something right. Let
(19:27):
me give you an example. Let's say you work really
hard on something and the result goes badly. Were you wrong?
Because let's say you didn't work hard at all and
the result went well, were you right? We have to
focus on our action, not just the outcome, because if
you did everything right and you continue to do that,
you will get the right outcome. But if you rely
(19:48):
on chance or hope or luck, you can't make that impactful.
Outcomes belong to time. Actions belong to you, and this
one celebrate invisible pro. I was giving a talk at
my company's holiday party recently, and I shared this with them.
I shared that I recognize all the things that they
(20:11):
do that I see, but more importantly, I want to
honor all the things that I don't see. I believe.
There is so much invisible work that you do, that
I do, that we all do, that is never seen,
and it's your job to try and celebrate it for yourself.
Your internal transformation will always come before external results. Always.
(20:36):
Let me leave you with this. You are not behind.
You're learning lessons now that others will have to learn later.
You're not behind. You're doing your best in a life
that hasn't always been easy. You're not behind. Everyone's figuring
things out privately while pretending they're ahead. You're not behind.
(20:59):
You're just on a timeline no one has ever lived before.
Stop punishing yourself for not being where you thought you'd be.
Start appreciating yourself for not giving up, because one year
from now you won't be behind. You'll just be grateful
that you got started. Your path is not delayed, it's deliberate,
(21:22):
and this is your year to walk it with confidence.
I'm wushing you all the best for the year ahead.
Remember forever in your corner and always rooting for you.
If you love this podcast, you love my episode with
Lewis Hamilton. Lewis and I talk about why you should
stop chasing society's definition of success and how to be
(21:43):
more intentional with your goals. You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
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 out
to be better.
I always felt stuck behind and late until I did this.
If you're starting this year already feeling behind, you are
not alone, and more importantly, you are not behind. Let
me tell you a fact most people don't know. Studies
show that nearly seven out of ten adults feel behind
(00:22):
on their life timeline, behind in love, behind in their career, behind, financially,
behind where they should be by now. And here's the twist.
Everyone is comparing themselves to everyone else, and everyone thinks
they're losing. People fascinate me. The married people envy the
single people. The single people envy the married people. People
(00:47):
with careers envy people who are entrepreneurs, people who are entrepreneurs,
envy the people with stability. No one feels ahead. Everyone
feels behind. How many of you listening right now feel
like you're behind in one of these areas. You're starting
the year and you're already thinking, look at that person
they got promoted last year, Look at that person they're
(01:09):
making a difference. Look at that person they've got their job.
Look at that person they've got a few more followers
than me. Today, I want to show you number one,
why you feel behind psychologically and culturally. Number two why
your timeline is not late statistically and scientifically, and number three,
(01:31):
how to stop letting comparison ruin your year. I also
want to give you the steps to rebuild confidence, momentum,
and purpose all in this episode. This episode might be
one of the most important ones you hear all year.
Let's begin. Let's talk about the truth about why you
(01:51):
feel behind. There are three main reasons we feel behind,
and none of them are your fault. Reason Number one,
we compare our insides to other people's outsides. There's something
called the highlight bias. You see people's weddings, promotions, vacations, homes, milestones,
(02:13):
but you never see their breakdowns, their failures, their doubts,
their setbacks, or their insecurities. Statistically, people overestimate how happy
others are and underestimate how happy they are. You're comparing
your confusion to someone else's filter. Now wonder you feel behind.
(02:35):
Stop comparing yourself to others. You don't know the battles
they hide or the bridges they had to burn to
get there. Stop comparing yourself to others. Your timeline is
custom made. Theirs was never designed to fit you. Stop
comparing yourself to others. Success looks different on everyone, and
(02:57):
so does the struggle. Stop comparing yourself to others. Your
progress is happening quietly internally, in ways no photo or
post can capture, and stop comparing yourself to others. You're
not here to match anyone. You're here to become the
person only you can be. So the reason we compare
(03:20):
ourselves is because we don't know enough context. If you
only see someone's post and assume you know them, you
know nothing. If you only see someone's tweet and assume
you know them, you know nothing. If you only see
someone's status update and think you know them, you know nothing.
(03:40):
When you envy someone, you have to learn to study them.
When you study someone, you get context. And when you
get context, you realize you're more likely in the same
place or even better off. Robin Roberts famously said if
everyone throw their problems into a pile, that immediately he
grabbed theirs back. We compare the worst of our lives
(04:05):
to the best of everyone else's. Of course, you feel
behind when if you were actually able to get to
know people deeply. This is one of the reasons why
having a shallow understanding of lots of people is so
harmful because when you have a shallow understanding of everyone,
you think everyone's doing better. When you have a deeper
understanding of everyone, you recognize you're all kind of going
(04:26):
through the same thing. Reason number two. You were sold
a timeline that doesn't exist. Graduate by twenty two, career
by twenty five, married by thirty, kids by thirty five,
successful by thirty seven, fulfilled by forty. This timeline was
invented in the nineteen fifties and hasn't been real for decades. Today,
(04:49):
the average age of marriage is the highest it's been
in history. Most people change careers three to seven times.
People find their purpose in their thirties, fifties, even sixties.
The average age of a successful entrepreneur is not twenty one,
it's forty five.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
You are not late.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The timeline you're comparing yourself to is outdated. You're not late.
You might be moving slower because you've had more to carry,
not because you're doing something wrong. You're not late. Half
the people you think are ahead of you just feel
as confused inside. You're not late. You're taking a real path,
(05:32):
not the imaginary one you thought you'd be on at eighteen.
You're not late. You're building your life while figuring yourself out,
and that takes time for everyone. See this idea that
there was a perfect time to have kids, a perfect
time to get married, a perfect time to win it.
Life isn't real. Everyone's timeline is absolutely different. And when
(05:58):
we tried to live our life based on what the
people around us are doing, think about how life would
go for a second, if you did everything at the
time everyone around you did it, how would that feel.
That means you'd have to rush getting married to someone
you don't love because you hadn't found them yet. You
had to rush having children because everyone else was having
(06:19):
them and you felt behind. If you do things that
you don't want to do just because you feel behind,
you will never be happy in your life because decisions
should be made when you're happy, when you're ready, when
you're peaceful, when you're content, when you're excited, not when
you're scared or anxious or nervous. Reason number three is
(06:43):
our brain is wired for falling behind anxiety you're Scientists
found that humans experienced something called temporal comparison stress. We
don't just compare ourselves to other people, We compare ourselves
to the person we thought we'd be by now. Think
about that for a second. You don't just feel behind
(07:06):
because of other people. You feel behind because of the
pressure you put on yourself. We feel behind not because
life is wrong, but because our expectations were unrealistic. We
feel behind because we thought we'd be in this position
by now, and everything else is just a reminder of
(07:28):
our inadequacy. But remember when you made that timeline, you
didn't really know that much. How many of us at
eighteen thought we knew when we were getting married. How
many of us at twenty five thought we knew when
we'd have kids. How many of us at fifteen thought
we knew when we'd be successful. But what was that
based on. It wasn't based on reality.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
It was just an.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Imaginary, made up version of what we thought life was
going to be. Like, here's the truth. No one predicts
their life accurately, not one single person. Your plan wasn't wrong,
It just didn't account for the fact that you're human, right.
Your plan wasn't weak. It's just that you didn't realize
(08:10):
there was so much more to life. Your plan wasn't
slow or unorganized, it was just you learned so much
more about yourself moving forward. Maybe you knew exactly what
you wanted to be at eighteen, but then when you
actually became it and you did that job, you realized
there was nothing like what you wanted. There's nothing wrong
(08:31):
with that. You didn't make a mistake, you didn't go
off track. You actually just discovered what that passion felt like.
In reality. I grew up in my teens thinking I
may want to be a graphic designer or an art
direct I loved it. I never actually did that for work.
I used it a lot as a hobby. I never
actually did it for work, But I think if I
would have, I would have figured out quite quickly that
(08:52):
that wasn't me. I ended up becoming a consultant. That
was definitely not me. But if I sit there and
I go wow, and I was there at this point,
I was twenty six years old. I was a consultant.
It wasn't what I wanted to do. And if I
thought to myself, I messed up, I'm behind. What can
I do now, I'll never be here today. I'm here
(09:12):
with you today because at twenty eight I decided to
move in the direction of what I cared about.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And you can too.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Let me give you some real evidence. Most people arrive
later than you think. Research shows that the average person
finds career clarity in their mid thirties. The average person
hits financial stability in their late thirties to mid forties.
Creative breakthroughs often happen around age forty to fifty. Emotional
(10:05):
maturity peaks around forty five to fifty five. If anything,
you might be ahead of the schedule, but you're definitely
not behind. The evidence shows that just because we hear
a couple of stories of a twenty one year old
billionaire and a thirty year old who's really mature, and
a thirty five year old who saved the planet, we
(10:25):
start measuring ourselves against these one percent or even less
than not recognizing the majority of people are in exactly
the same space we are. Here's some more evidence life
satisfaction has a use shape. Studies across one hundred and
thirty countries show a consistent pattern. Life satisfaction dips in
your twenties and thirties, then rises in your forties, fifties,
(10:50):
and sixties, Meaning feeling lost now isn't a flaw. It's universal.
It's part of the human curve, and the reason why
I say that is because your twenties and thirties are
also when you put so much pressure on yourself. You
care more about what people think, You think you should
be somewhere else, You care more about what other people
are doing. As you start to lose that as you
(11:12):
get older, it just has less of a hold in
control over you. But if we were able to step
back and go, I want to put positive pressure on
myself but not break myself. It's almost like being in
the gym and lifting weights. You want to lift enough
to challenge yourself and push yourself, but not to hurt yourself.
Sometimes the pressure we put on our mind is hurting us,
(11:33):
not helping us. And here's even some more evidence late
bloomers are more common than the early ones. Oprah got
her show at thirty two. Vera Wang became a designer
at forty. Tony Morrison published her first book at thirty nine.
Ray Krok franchised McDonald's at fifty two. Success is not early.
(11:56):
Success is aligned. You're not behind you unfolding. If all
of those people just felt they were behind the whole time,
they wouldn't have been present enough to capture the opportunity
at that time. Your goal is not to think about
whether you're ahead or behind. And here's the scary thing.
Here's actually the biggest mistake we make. If you believe
(12:18):
you're a head, it means you'll fall behind one day,
And if you feel you're behind, you'll always want to
be ahead, but then scared that someone else will get ahead.
It's a slippery slope to think that everything is a
ranking system. It is a slippery slope to live that way,
to think that you're ahead or behind, because then you'll
(12:39):
feel worse when you're behind. You'll feel insecure when you're
at the top. If people feel that life is a race,
you'll feel insecure and anxious at the top, and you'll
feel depressed and disappointed at the bottom. When you realize
that life is not a race, it is simply your path,
you don't feel the insecurity of being number one, and
(13:01):
you don't feel the depression of being lost. You recognize
you a where you're meant to be doing what you're
supposed to do. Because we have to recognize that feeling
behind can be dangerous. When you believe you're behind, you
do three things. Number One, you rush decisions you should
take slowly wrong jobs, wrong relationships, wrong priorities. Number two.
(13:26):
You quit things too early. You assume slow progress means
wrong direction. Number three, you stop enjoying the life you
actually have. You live inside imaginary pressure instead of real possibility.
Feeling behind doesn't speed you up. It steals your piece
and sabotages your progress.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
So what do we do?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
How do you stop feeling behind? Here are the practical
frameworks that actually work. Framework number one. Compare less, connect more.
Don't ask where where are they compared to me? Ask
where am I compared to yesterday? Your only real competition
is the person you were twenty four hours ago. This
(14:12):
is one of the best mindsets I could possibly give. You.
Only measure yourself based on how you're growing compared to
where you want to be and who you are. Stop
living your life thinking about where everyone else is or
what you thought you'd be at fifteen and now you're
thirty years old. Have you grown since yesterday? Have you
grown since last week? Are you taking the steps to
(14:34):
do that? That's where your focus should be. Framework number two.
Rewrite your timeline. Take a piece of paper and write,
my life is not late, it's layered. And now ask
yourself what did I survive? What did I learn? What
did I build internally that no one can see? When
(14:55):
I lived as a month for three years, it wasn't
available to everyone else. Everyone thought I was behind, Everyone
thought I was lost. Everyone around me moved forward, but
I was making real internal progress that no one else
could see. That was progress. It was invisible, but real.
(15:17):
And most of your growth happens before anyone sees the results.
So just because everyone can't see what you're doing, it
doesn't mean that it's not valuable. And not everything that
is valuable can be seen, and not everything that is
seen is valuable. Just because you can see what someone's
doing in the success they're having, that doesn't mean they're ahead,
(15:40):
because you could be growing underground and you're about to grow.
I met so many people when I first started creating
content who are far ahead of me and followers far ahead,
and they didn't take me seriously because they didn't think
that I would take it seriously. I wanted to collaborate
with them, I wanted to work with them, but they
(16:00):
didn't want to do that with me because I wasn't
big enough, not realizing that if we think we're bigger,
or better or ahead or behind will never grow? Framework
number three, identify your season. You're not behind, You're in
a season. Are you in a season of healing? Are
you in a season of rebuilding? Learning, transitioning, p resting, experimenting.
(16:28):
You can't compare your season one to someone else's season seven. Also,
all of these cycles have a different pace. Healing has
a different pace to transitioning. Transitioning has a different pace
to performing. Performing has a different pace to growing, learning, building?
(16:49):
Which season are you in? Get really clear about what
twenty twenty six is about for you? Is twenty twenty
six about healing, because then that's going to look very
different to someone who's building. I've had years when we
have been planting seeds, and I won't see the success
of that in this year. I'll only see it in
the year after. Is my year of failure? Because I
(17:11):
didn't see it? Definitely not. Framework number four. Define progress
as consistency, not speed. If you take one step every
day this year, you'll be three hundred and sixty five
steps ahead by next January. That's transformation, quiet and consistence.
(17:32):
Progress is a direction, not a deadline. So let's talk
about speed. Let's say for one month you're at a
speed ten out of ten, but for the rest of
the year, you're at a zero out of ten. Guess
what you were at five out of ten for the
whole year. But if you are just a consistent six
or seven, you're already beating the speed of one month
at ten out of ten. Consistency beats speed. If you'll
(17:56):
eventually run out of speed, if you'll run out of
speed and run out of steam, consistency is always going
to win. Framework Number five. Ask the question that changes everything.
Instead of asking why am I behind? Ask what is
this season preparing me for? The answer will change the
way you see your timeline. You have to reframe it.
(18:21):
You have to look at it from a different angle.
There have been so many years where everyone else could
think I haven't achieved anything, and I'm not moving forward,
but we're planning the seeds for next year. There are
times in my life where I thought I was falling behind,
but now I realize I was actually falling into place.
I want to share with you the five practical steps
(18:43):
to take this year. Number one, make a this is
my season statement. Define where you are and own it.
Don't worry about anyone else's season. What season are you in?
Number two remove three social media accounts that trigger comparison.
Protect your mind. If you keep comparing yourself to everyone,
(19:06):
you will always feel behind. It is not your fault,
it's how we're wired. Number three set one goal for
ninety days, not the year. Shorter cycles equals more wins,
more progress. Number four track actions, not outcomes. We often
think the outcome decides whether we did something right. Let
(19:27):
me give you an example. Let's say you work really
hard on something and the result goes badly. Were you wrong?
Because let's say you didn't work hard at all and
the result went well, were you right? We have to
focus on our action, not just the outcome, because if
you did everything right and you continue to do that,
you will get the right outcome. But if you rely
(19:48):
on chance or hope or luck, you can't make that impactful.
Outcomes belong to time. Actions belong to you, and this
one celebrate invisible pro. I was giving a talk at
my company's holiday party recently, and I shared this with them.
I shared that I recognize all the things that they
(20:11):
do that I see, but more importantly, I want to
honor all the things that I don't see. I believe.
There is so much invisible work that you do, that
I do, that we all do, that is never seen,
and it's your job to try and celebrate it for yourself.
Your internal transformation will always come before external results. Always.
(20:36):
Let me leave you with this. You are not behind.
You're learning lessons now that others will have to learn later.
You're not behind. You're doing your best in a life
that hasn't always been easy. You're not behind. Everyone's figuring
things out privately while pretending they're ahead. You're not behind.
(20:59):
You're just on a timeline no one has ever lived before.
Stop punishing yourself for not being where you thought you'd be.
Start appreciating yourself for not giving up, because one year
from now you won't be behind. You'll just be grateful
that you got started. Your path is not delayed, it's deliberate,
(21:22):
and this is your year to walk it with confidence.
I'm wushing you all the best for the year ahead.
Remember forever in your corner and always rooting for you.
If you love this podcast, you love my episode with
Lewis Hamilton. Lewis and I talk about why you should
stop chasing society's definition of success and how to be
(21:43):
more intentional with your goals. You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
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 out
to be better.
Host
Jay Shetty
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