Feel Left Behind? How to Move Ahead From It

It is perfectly normal to feel left behind. Some of the reasons why you may be feeling left behind is when your friends are perceivably doing better than you. Believe me when I say that I’ve been there and I still am there. However, there are simple things you can do to avoid feeling this way.

One of my friends makes $212,000 per year who is only six years older than me. Another friend makes double what I make while only being one year older than me. Other friends are getting married and buying a house that appreciated 60% in value over the past year. Some friends are thinking of starting a family.

Trust me when I say that I have many friends who are mountain times ahead of me. I can only awe at how well that they are doing. I may only be focusing on the things that they are doing well instead of the things that they aren’t doing so well on. After all, one of the friends got divorced.

Additionally, I remind myself that I may be slow to get to where I want to get to at times. It can never be a true apples to oranges comparison. The one who makes $212k per year works 60% more than I do taking 2am international calls.

However, I still can’t help it and can’t shake that feeling off. I still feel left behind. However, instead of being jealous or wanting to one-up them, I celebrate their accomplishments and are happy for them. I use it as motivation and an example of what I could achieve if I put in the work and effort.

Your friends’ successes are not your failures. It’s not healthy to compare yourself to them because it’s never a true comparison.

Why Do You Feel Left Behind?

One reason why you feel left behind is because you’re not showing some love to the social share button and posting to your favorite social media! Your friends are doing it and sharing the knowledge and information so it’s a good idea to do so!

In seriousness, there are many reasons why you may be feeling left behind. A reminder is that there’s ALWAYS someone in the world better than you. Without fail. That will stand true until the end of time. Even Roger Federer still had losses when he was in his prime.

You can never be objectively, truly, and factually be the best at anything. Therefore, there’s no reason to try to be someone who you can never be. So with that said, let’s go into more reasons why you are experiencing feelings of inadequacy.

1) Your Friends are Doing Better Than You

When we are young, we sought the approval of our parents. These days, we seek the approval of our friends. Whether unconsciously, subconsciously, or consciously, we can’t help but feel we are in competition with them. Therefore, when we see how they are doing better than us, we feel left behind.

When we think of someone like Elon Musk, we don’t have feelings of inadequacy. It’s just another guy who achieved massive success, good for him. Why is that? We don’t have personal investment towards him. We don’t really know what he’s like or what he did to get to where he is.

However, imagine what Elon Musk’s college roommate feels like. That roommate must feel like no matter what he does in his life, it will never compare to what Elon Musk’s accomplishments are. He could become a billionaire for all we know, and it would pale in comparison to Elon Musk’s 12 figure net worth.

Your peers influence your mind, decisions, and actions more than you know.

2) You Had High Expectations for Yourself

I remember when I was in high school. Reading stories about millionaires achieving wild success made me feel like it was easy. Sure, they are smart, but I’m smart too. If they can do it, why can’t I do it? Imagine how I felt when I realized just exactly how hard it is to reach the expectations I set for myself.

Becoming a millionaire is hard work and takes significant discipline, time, and effort in order to get there. So when it’s taking me a lot longer than I expected, that’s when I started to feel left behind. “I should have been way further ahead in my goals!” is what I’m thinking.

Even though my net worth is literally at the top 1% for my age group, I still feel like I’m not doing enough. That’s one of the reasons why you feel left behind as well. We all want the best for ourselves. However, we sometimes have to recognize that we’re already in the top 10% of life and that we just need to sit back and relax.

Sometimes, we just need to recognize and enjoy that fruits of our labor that we already accomplished. Chances are great that you already did well so far.

3) Your Progress is Too Slow

This is the final reason why we feel left behind. Whether we like it or not, the results we enjoy are actually disproportionate to our effort. Whether your results are over 1x your effort or under 1x your effort, the point stands that it is disproportionate. Therefore, when we put in 10 units of input, we expect 10 units of output.

However, in the first years or perfecting your craft, it will never return 10 units of output. It may return 3, or even 5. Yes, at the end of the day, you are still making positive progress. However, when we start to feel like we are giving up more than what we are getting in return, we feel frustrated.

This will be the hardest struggle and hurdle you will face in your life. In the first couple of years of pursuing a goal or a project, your progress feels like a snail. It’s supposed to feel like a snail. The actual progress happens towards the last quartile of the game. The final stretch is when the interesting things happen.

The first couple of years, manage your expectations and expect little to slow results. It’s when you show zero results that you should start to care.

Is it OK to Feel Left Behind?

It is absolutely OK to feel left behind. I guarantee all 8 billion people on Earth felt left behind at some point in their lives. Not just once, but multiple times. Even Jeff Bezos gets jealous at Elon Musk. He got so jealous that he implemented an “Amazon HQ2” fiasco and demanded insane tax benefits in exchange.

It’s absolutely OK and normal to feel left behind, everyone feels it at some point and at multiple times. Heck, billionaires who supposedly have everything they could possibly want gets jealous. I get jealous and feel inadequate many times in my life and I know I will continue to feel this way.

It’s literally impossible to be the best at something and if you actually and factually are the best at something, it isn’t permanent. Therefore, it’s normal to feel like your friends are surpassing you at every way imaginable. We have, what are called, feelings. It makes us feel irrational things are times.

You are not alone in these feelings and thoughts. There’s no need to beat yourself up for feeling the way that you do.

How to Stop Feeling Left Behind

So now that we know why we feel left behind and who feels that way, let’s get into how to stop feeling this way. Your feelings aren’t something that you can just shut down at will. Therefore, it will be a process. The key is implementing the process the right way.

1) Find Out Why You Feel Left Behind

What is the actual problem? Is your childhood best friend that you’ve been equal to for the majority of your life now suddenly is a multimillionaire? Or that tennis rival you’ve always won against is now handily beating you without any seeming effort after just one summer of training?

Whatever the situation is, figure out why you feel left behind. Otherwise, it does you no good to try to reach a destination when you don’t even know where you’re going to. Be totally and brutally honest with what your reasons are. The only person you would be lying to is yourself and the only person who you are harming.

I feel left behind and inadequate compared to my friend who makes $212k per year because I wanted to be the best amongst my friends when it comes to money. After all, I spent countless hours during college educating myself on personal finance. I also put in an insane amount of effort to save a five figure sum post college.

However, I have to recognize that she is six years older than me and therefore had six years to build up her income base. I will have to be patient.

2) Remember that Your Life is Someone Else’s Goal

After you figure out why you feel left behind, consider the fact that your current life is what someone else dreams of having. I currently have a net worth of $400,000. I have to recognize that that is literally the top 1% wealth of my age group. That literally means that 98% of people might like to be in my position currently.

Ok, not 98%, probably closer to like 80%, but the point still stands. There are millions of people out in the world who would chop off their left hand in order to have the life that you currently have. If you can afford an internet connection, you already won the birth lottery.

Specifically, the geographic part of the birth lottery. You may already have a great life. Whether someone else has an even better life has zero impact on what your current life is. Whether you get there slowly or quickly, does it really matter? If it does matter, how does it matter?

Chances are, it’s not that material.

3) Cut off All Social Media

When you cut off social media with all of its filters and highlights of cherry picked accomplishments, you don’t feel left behind. It’s interesting how people love to talk about how great their lives are. They never love to talk about how bad their lives are. They don’t want to be seen as “weak” to other people.

People are not willing to admit or talk about their weaknesses publicly. They don’t want to feel vulnerable because the law of the jungle says the weak get eaten. Deep down inside, their lives could be horrible. Their marriage could be in trouble, they might be in the brink of divorce, or a month away from losing their house.

You don’t truly and fully know someone’s situation until everything is said and done. There’s no need to be convinced by rosy pictures that other people perfectly crafted for you to look at and judge. I haven’t logged into Facebook in a year. The friends that are close to me, I keep contact with already.

4) Talk About it With Trusted Ones that You Feel Left Behind

It’s very important you talk that you feel left behind with TRUSTED ONES, otherwise it will backfire. The ones who stood by you when you were struggling before. The ones who demonstrated historically that they are willing to accept you even if you are down.

There are truly people in this world who will use your feelings of being left behind against you at all costs. They will downplay it, mock it, or even tell others what you just told them. That could finally show you their true colors so that you could cut ties with them.

When you do talk about it with kindred people that you trust, good things are going to happen. You will come out ahead and stronger than ever. Sometimes, you are going to feel trapped, stuck, behind, with no solutions. However, you always have the power to dust yourself off and keep going.

It’s an even bigger bonus when your loved ones support you along the way.

5) Take it Day by Day

After you take each day for what it is, soon a year will pass. The master strategist never looks 10 steps into the future. At most, he will look 3 steps into the future. Unless those future predictions are forced, it’s a waste of time to look 10 steps into the future.

Chess players don’t look 10 moves into the future, unless his opponent’s moves are forced. Why? There could always be some moves that are missing. If the moves aren’t forced, there are always additional possibilities that could occur. It’s wise to then look 3 moves into the future. However, more than that and it’s a waste of time.

If you feel left behind, take it day by day with a nearsighted opinion on what the future could be. Don’t be so obsessed with looking into the future that you lose the sight of what you can accomplish today. The future is important, absolutely. What’s more important is the present.

6) Genuinely be Happy for Your Friends

It hurts when you feel like you are behind in life. I know because I feel left behind numerous times. One of my friends is just one year older than me. He is projected to make almost double what I make in the next year. When he told me the news, I was genuinely happy for them.

It gave me motivation to put in additional effort to increase my income. After taking two weeks to recharge, I have a blueprint on things I want to do in order to make more money next year. Additionally, there are countless examples of successful people who got there later in life.

For example, Andrei Jikh is 32 and he’s not married while some of my friends got married at 22 or 24. Where-ever you are in life, there are millions of others who have what you want while starting at a lower spot. You have plenty of time left to go after your goals and get them. It’ll only be a matter of time.

7) Stop Comparing Yourself to Impossible Standards

Can you imagine how Jeff Bezos’ brother feels compared to Jeff Bezos? That is an impossible standard to live up to. It’s so impossible that only one out of eight billion people achieved what Jeff Bezos achieved. Whatever your goals are, it’s never too late to start on them.

However, you will not even start on them if you are already defeated by the realization that you will never achieve what less than 0.001% of people achieved. Instead of comparing yourself and expecting impossible standards for yourself, be more realistic.

There are people who will outperform you in ways you’ve never imagined. Instead of feeling left behind, work on your own goals. Don’t care about your relative results. Care about your absolute results. If others are doing better than you, great! What matters is if you are doing good.

If You Feel Left Behind, Don’t Go Overboard to Catch Up

The biggest mistake you can make is to bet the farm and the house because you feel like you need to catch up. There’s no need to cash out your house equity to go all in on an options play that could leave you homeless. Slow and steady wins the race.

Yes, the ones who truly wins are that one person who took a risk beyond people’s wildest dreams and somehow have it work out. However, that’s the one in a million example. The rest of the winners built and constructed their life to the point where they felt satisfied.

I could quit my job tomorrow and start a business to beat my friends’ income level of $200k+. However, in doing so, I have the risk of losing everything while she doesn’t have that risk. What’s an even better strategy is to enjoy my $127k+ cash compensation and try to make up for the difference somehow, someway.

It could be through side hustles, it could be through investments. Whichever path I choose, I always have the opportunity to close the gap with zero risk. Unlimited upside with zero risk, what’s not to love? Just because I feel left behind does not mean that I am desperate to go all in and hope that things work out.

If you feel left behind in marriage, there’s no need to go overboard and ask a girlfriend you’ve been dating for a month to marry you. You have your whole life ahead of you. There’s plenty of time for you to get what you want out of life. It’s only over when you decide to give up.