Comparing yourself to others is one of the fastest ways to feel miserable, and social media has made it constant, because you are now comparing your ordinary daily life to everyone else’s carefully chosen highlights. The first thing to understand is that what you see of others is a filtered showreel, not their full reality. You are seeing their wins and none of their struggles, then measuring your whole messy self against it. That is not a fair comparison, it is a rigged one.
It also helps to remember that everyone is running a different race on a different track. People have different starting points, resources, interests, and timelines, so someone being ahead in one thing says nothing about your worth or your future. The only honest comparison is you today versus you a few months ago. Focus on your own progress, and you will feel motivated instead of defeated.
Practically, reduce the triggers. If certain accounts consistently make you feel worse about yourself, mute or unfollow them, because you do not have to keep feeding your mind things that hurt it. Fill that space with your own goals and small daily wins. When the comparison thought comes, notice it, remind yourself you are seeing a highlight reel, and gently return to your own path. It takes practice, but you can genuinely train your mind to spend less time measuring yourself against others and more time building your own life.
Example: Seeing a classmate post about an achievement, you only see the result, not the years of effort, failures, and help behind it. The full story is always bigger than the post.
One practical tip: Compare yourself only to who you were a few months ago. That is the one comparison that is fair and actually useful.