07/19/2026
Whose Success-Narrative is it Anyway?
Read another success story and started questioning whether you've accomplished anything at all?
Comparison-itis pulls a chair and settles down, feeling right at home.
You feel discouraged, disillusionment takes over, and before long you're questioning your entire journey. But there is something very important you probably never noticed, and therefore never stopped to question either.
How many of these success stories seem to follow the same script? Someone struggles, faces rejection, doubts themselves, perseveres, finally makes it, and somewhere along the way discovers a mantra, a secret, or a strategy that changed everything. These stories are often deeply personal, moving, relatable, and beautifully told.
In past, I've shared parts of my own journey too that could easily feel as though they were cooked in the same kitchen. Carefully narrated, hiding the parts I did not want anyone to notice, and showing off what seemed like a perfectly motivating journey. Let me tell you this - every time I did that I felt the emptiness within. I felt like sh**!
Having said that, I am not questioning the authenticity of these stories. What I am questioning is the way they are often presented and the reality that, while they are intended to make us admire someone else's success, they can instead leave us doubting and minimizing our own accomplishments.
I've had people tell me they feel fired up for a while after reading these stories, only to find that the initial excitement slowly gives way to exhaustion, disappointment, and self-doubt. I can relate because I've allowed these well-crafted narratives to play games with my own mind more times than I care to admit.
If you've ever found yourself wondering why you're working just as hard without seeing similar results, and you've started questioning your decisions, your abilities, or even your own worth because your journey feels slower, messier, or far less remarkable than someone else's, especially those much younger than you, then you're not alone.
Somehow the greatest irony is that these stories often have the exact opposite effect on the people reading them than the one they appear to promise. Or do they? And these days they are often 'AI generated' and 'Perfected' to 'engage'. Add to that people blindly responding to these stories with their own AI generated comments, often without actually reading the entire message. But that's a fish I'll fry another day!
That aside, just think about it - the reason often they feel so powerful is because they simplify the incredible complexity of what it actually takes to grow. They compress years into a few paragraphs, uncertainty into a handful of setbacks, and success into a defining breakthrough, triggering our Comparison-itis.
My friend, life is rarely that simple, and I speak from experience, that growth is almost never that linear.
In these narratives, there is little mention of the ordinary days in between, the false starts, the relationships that opened doors but led nowhere, the support received but was more noise than something you could lean on, the timing, the opportunities, the setbacks that led nowhere, or the countless variables that shaped the outcome. More importantly, these stories can distract you from recognizing everything you have already accomplished simply because your achievements don't fit the narrative you have just consumed.
The problem begins when we expect someone else's story to explain our own. It never could. Their story isn't yours, and yours was never meant to be theirs. Yet Comparison-itis happily pulls up a chair and convinces us otherwise. Before long, we stop comparing our lives with another person's reality and begin comparing them with the version they chose to tell. Is it really surprising that we end up believing we are somehow falling behind?
And also, whether every story is entirely true is almost beside the point, and it certainly isn't my focus here. What concerns me is the belief they can leave behind, that success ought to be dramatic, somehow dependent on one breakthrough, an epiphany that changed how they saw and did everything, or that every worthwhile journey should have a defining breakthrough, and that if our own lives do not resemble those stories, we must somehow be getting it wrong. Only if it were that simpleโฆ like a template. And don't get me started on templatesโฆ!
So, instead of questioning your own growth, I really encourage you to pause and look at how far you have already come.
Think about the people you've helped, the messages of thanks you've received, the trust you've earned, and the moments where you made a genuine difference in someone's life. When you put them all together, you may realize you've accomplished far more than you've been giving yourself credit for. These are all footprints of success you almost ignored, often dismissed simply because they didn't resemble the story you had just consumed.
Perhaps that is the greatest cost of these perfectly packaged narratives that they don't simply invite us to admire someone else's journey, instead they persuade us to overlook our own - in the process deflating our confidence and denting our enthusiasm towards our own dreams. A cost I am not willing to pay and encourage you to avoid too.
This is where I must remind you that your journey was never meant to follow someone else's blueprint, timeline, or definition of success. It was always going to be shaped by your circumstances, your choices, your setbacks, your opportunities, and the people whose lives you touched along the way. That is not a lesser story because it doesn't fit neatly into a viral post. Virality isn't always reality. It is simply your story, and it needs to be written with your experience, on your terms and aligned to your values and aspirations.
What I am really saying is that every journey is unique and leaves its own footprints. Some are obvious, while others are so ordinary that we walk straight past them without noticing but they are neither less-than, nor require any comparison. So please, before you compare your path with someone else's story, take a pause and look at the footprints you've already left behind.
They tell a far more honest story about your progress than Comparison-itis ever will. It has had enough airtime already. No more please. Instead, keep building your own journey, sharing the real value you have to offer, keep becoming the person you set out to become - and believe in what you are creating keeping in mind the 'why' that got you started in the first place.
With that, I am going to write down a few reminders that help me remember why I started and where I am going, on my terms.
Intentionally - Szebastian - Because. I. Am.
