How to cope with the success of those younger than you? How to stop comparing yourself to others? This question is not the easiest to clarify, since in itself comparing oneself with others is the so-called - in our psychological language - cognitive distortion, or in other words - a thinking error. As a rule, it arises from the desire of parents to motivate their children in a negative way by comparing them with others. There is a long-established meme on this topic called “my mother’s friend’s son.” Sometimes this works, since such a comparison carries a message at the meta-message level - you are bad, or even a message - I don’t love you. Depending on how it was said. And this settles in the memory so much that it can turn on a compensation mechanism in the child’s psyche, in which he really begins to try to be better in one or more aspects, so as not to experience these negative emotions again in life. And such a person is doomed to endless comparisons of himself with others, and with each comparison not in his favor, the words from the most important people in childhood echo in his soul in the form of experiences - you are bad, I don’t love you. And it hurts. In such cases, unfortunately, it is very difficult for a person to help himself; in this case, the best decision would be to turn to a psychologist for a course of psychotherapy. If we are talking about “easier”, from the point of view of mental processes, causes of these experiences, then there are a number of universal techniques. The first is awareness of your motivation. Why are you even going down this path, because you like what you do, you do what brings you pleasure, makes your life or even others’ lives better, or to prove to others that you are better? If the second, then it’s probably not about the desire to do better, but about the lack of self-love. In this case, maybe it’s worth pausing and asking yourself the question, what’s stopping me from accepting myself as I am? Although I suspect that finding the answer to this question on your own will not be easy. The second very important thing is to gain some understanding that everything we see from others is some tip of the iceberg. Moreover, it’s not always real, how many memes have already been made on the topic of comparing situations on Instagram and in reality. But if we return to the iceberg, then external visible success is based on enormous underwater work and often not at all obvious factors. For example, the recent scandal with the CEO of the North American division of Nike, Anne Hebert, who had to resign after 25 years of work. It was revealed that a famous and successful 19-year-old entrepreneur who built a business by repurchasing elite series of their sneakers turned out to be her son. Those who watched his success online and compared themselves to him were unlikely to even guess about such a detail. To take another case, I personally know a young girl who, having started working at the age of 16, by the age of 18 bought an apartment in one of the cities with a population of over a million in Russia. Another point is that her business idea was an accidental find that was relevant for only a few years; now she works in a regular hired job. The window of opportunity in this area has closed. And also, do not forget that behind many success stories there is hard work that is simply not visible from the outside. And which does not always pay off. This is another cognitive bias called the survivor's bias. When we see only those who succeeded, missing out on the fact that there are tens and hundreds of times more of those who couldn’t, we simply don’t hear their stories. In addition, we need to understand this thing: our feelings point us in the direction in which we need to move. Curiosity encourages you to approach, excitement to take risks, fear to run away, anger to strike, anxiety to freeze. Accordingly, this also works in the other direction, if someone else’s success causes negative emotions, then the associative connection success is bad may appear in the head on an emotional level. And reach it.