How To Stop Feeling Like You're 'Falling Behind' In Life

If you're constantly comparing your life to others, it's time to rethink your story. New research shows that feeling 'behind' is a mental trap.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | July 17, 2025

As a society, over time, we have become dominantly run by timelines. Everything seems to have a socially approved window — from when you should graduate, land your job, get married, have children to when you should "find yourself."

This pressure can come from or be reinforced by watching others achieve milestones on your social media feed, by conversations with family or even subtle comparisons with peers.

So naturally, the idea that you're behind in life can become a deep-seated belief. This obsession with timing doesn't just create stress but also distorts how you evaluate your progress. It can eventually even blind you to how far you've come.

The tricky part is that this belief can start feeling like a fact or proof that you're not doing enough. When in reality, this belief is usually shaped by narrow definitions of success and progress that don't reflect the complexity of real life.

Everyone starts at a different pace, with different resources, circumstances and responsibilities. You don't start at the same starting line as the others you may compare yourself to. So, to measure your path against someone else's only seems unfair.

Just because you haven't achieved something by a certain age or in the same way as someone else doesn't mean you're behind. It simply means you're on a different path.

Based on research, here are two ways you can stop feeling behind in life and appreciate your progress.

1. Boost Your Self-Efficacy By Balancing Time Perspectives

One powerful way you can shift your mindset from feeling behind is to look at how you're relating to your past and future.

A 2019 study explored how your perception of time, specifically how you relate to your past and future, can influence your belief in your ability to achieve goals, known as general self-efficacy.

Through two studies, researchers investigated whether activating different time perspectives could impact people's confidence and follow-through on personal goals.

In the first study, participants were asked to identify a goal they wanted to achieve in the near future. Those who eventually achieved their goal showed higher scores in the "past positive" and "future" time perspectives, meaning they not only remembered past successes but also had a proactive mindset toward the future.

However, those who scored high in "present fatalism," referring to people with the belief that life is out of their control, were less likely to believe in their ability to succeed.

In the second study, participants were assigned a brief writing intervention where they reflected on either past achievements, future goals or both. Researchers found that those who combined a positive past with a future goal focus experienced a significant increase in self-efficacy.

The study shows how feeling behind in life is not just emotional, but also cognitive.

When you constantly compare yourself to others or your focus is only on what hasn't happened yet, you start operating from an unbalanced time perspective, which is usually future-focused with anxiety and past-focused on failure. This combination only lowers self-efficacy, as seen in the study.

To change this, you need to focus on consciously rebalancing your time perspective by remembering your past wins (past-positive) and pairing them with clear future intentions (future-oriented). This shift can lead to real behavioral change.

In the study, researchers also found that even a short writing exercise where the participants recalled a past success and outlined a future goal increased participants' belief in their ability to take action.

So, when you feel behind, remember that your brain might be ignoring evidence of your own capability. Sometimes, the fastest way to move forward is to pause and remind yourself of how far you've already come.

2. Use Self-Distancing To Reflect With Clarity

In moments where you feel overwhelmed or stuck in judgment of yourself and your life, stepping back and observing your situation, rather than reliving it, can dramatically reduce distress and help provide clearer insight.

Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology explored the real-life psychological and interpersonal benefits of spontaneous self-distancing, that is, the natural tendency to view one's negative experiences from an outsider's perspective instead of reliving them through immersion.

Researchers examined whether self-distancing in everyday reflection led to the same emotional benefits seen in controlled lab settings. They found that participants who naturally self-distanced showed lower emotional and physiological reactivity (e.g., reduced stress and emotional overwhelm), both in the moment and over time.

These effects were not due to avoidance or emotional suppression; rather, self-distanced individuals engaged less in repetitive recounting and more in meaning-making and construal. This helped them feel calmer even weeks later.

Moreover, in romantic relationships, those who self-distanced were more likely to problem-solve constructively and less likely to escalate conflicts. On the other hand, there was interpersonal fallout typically seen with rumination.

Even after accounting for traits like rumination or reappraisal, self-distancing remained a unique predictor of emotional resilience.

This research highlights that when you feel stuck in self-criticism, shifting to an observer mindset, like asking "Why did I feel this way?" instead of "Why am I like this?" can help you process challenges with greater clarity instead of spiraling in shame or avoidance.

When you're stuck in a spiral of wondering why you're not "there" yet or feeling like everyone's moving forward except for you, self-distancing can be a powerful reset.

Instead of analyzing your life from inside the storm, take a moment and find a way to step outside of it.

One way you could implement this is by describing your current situation as if you were observing a friend going through it. This subtle shift can help your brain switch to a more compassionate perspective.

When you stop reliving the pressure and start reevaluating the journey, you give yourself the space to notice progress and possibilities you couldn't see up close.

Remember that feeling "behind" is often less about where you are and more about how you're looking at it.

Redefine Progress On Your Terms

At the end of the day, it's important to remember that success doesn't follow a one-size-fits-all timeline. More importantly, it looks and feels different for everyone. What looks like progress for one person might feel completely unaligned for another.

A simple question to always ask yourself when you're caught in the pressure of feeling behind would be, "Behind according to whom?"

Be true to yourself and define what success means to you. Then, let your definition of success be the guiding factor of your pace, your choices and even the way you evaluate progress.

Don't forget that you're building a life that belongs to you. So, it should first and foremost feel meaningful to you and not just aligned with what society says it should be.

Do you also fall for society's timeline trap? Take this science-backed test to find out how you perceive control over your life's milestones: Locus Of Control Scale

A similar version of this article can also be found on Forbes.com, here.