One thing that has made me a much more well-adjusted person is a clip I once saw of Hank Green saying that anyone can be in amazing shape as long as being in amazing shape is one of their top three priorities.
(This is obviously a generalization that isn't true for everyone. But it is true for most people and I'm proceeding from there.)
This "top three priorities" framing has genuinely reduced my tendency toward jealousy and self-comparison a lot. Now when I feel envious of someone’s spotless, aesthetic home, I think to myself, “Having a spotless, aesthetic home is probably one of their top three priorities. It’s definitely not one of mine, so I shouldn’t expect my home to look like that.”
Or when I see an influencer with a body that takes a ton of work to maintain: “Maintaining that body is obviously one of her top three priorities, because it’s her livelihood. My livelihood is my brain, so I’m never going to prioritize my body like that.”
It also helps me to identify areas that I actually DO want to prioritize more. I realized in recent years that my envy for my friends who prioritized writing more than I did was NOT going away, so I started to prioritize writing more. (Not top three, but higher priority than it has been in the past.)
This with a side helping of Charlie Follows video saying 'do not compare your body to that of a movement professional'.
She gets a lot of comments asking if yoga gave her her body and she says 'yes, it did...but...' and goes on to point out that because she does yoga for a living her body reflects that. But someone who works and office job and then does one of Charlie Follows yoga classes in the evenings is not going to have the same results in terms of it changing their physique because they're not doing precise, intentional movement for a living.
Same goes for fitness influencers. They have that body because they work out for a living.
Organising consultants have perfectly organised homes, because they do it for a living.
Fashion influencers look forever stylish because they do it for a living.
Even if someone doesn't do it for a living but making content about it is their main hobby/a side gig? That person knits that many things in a year because they put ALL their time into it. That person reads that many books in a year because they put ALL their time into it.
I run, I do yoga, I crochet, I read, I bake, I grow vegetables. I don't run massive distances, I can't do the splits, I don't crochet a million things a year, I many unread books in my flat, I forget to bake frequently, my plants die sometimes because I forget to take care of them right. Because I have a life filled with lot of competing joys and priorities, not just one.
Also CRITICAL reminder that those influencers do not look like their photos in real life. The beauty influencer is not putting on a full face at home, the fashion influencer has unflattering clothes for the house and the late night toilet paper run. Some of them might have work done, assistants to help them, professional photography experience because, again, it's their livelihood.
