I closed my laptop feeling smaller than when I’d opened it.
Ten minutes earlier, I’d logged into LinkedIn to check a single notification. Thirty seconds later, I was deep in a scroll spiral: a former colleague announcing their VP promotion, someone I’d never met sharing their “humbled” keynote invitation, an acquaintance posting about their company’s Series B funding. Each post a small paper cut to my confidence.
Sound familiar?
LinkedIn is designed to make you feel like you’re falling behind. The platform rewards announcement culture, celebrates milestones without context, and creates a highlight reel that makes everyone else’s career look like a perfectly choreographed TED Talk while yours feels like an improvised open mic night.
But here’s the truth that changed everything for me: comparison isn’t the problem. Unclear priorities are.
The Comparison Trap is a Focus Problem in Disguise
When we see someone else’s win and feel that familiar knot in our stomach, we think we’re experiencing envy. But often, we’re experiencing something else entirely: the sudden, uncomfortable realization that we’re not sure what we’re building toward.
Research confirms that social comparison becomes toxic when we lack clear self-referent goals. In other words, other people’s achievements only destabilize us when we haven’t defined what success looks like on our own terms.
Think about it. When you’re deeply engaged in work that matters to you, when you’re making tangible progress on a project you care about, do you feel threatened by someone else’s promotion? Rarely. You’re too busy building.
The scroll spiral happens when we’re uncertain, adrift, or disconnected from our own sense of purpose. LinkedIn doesn’t create that uncertainty, it just exposes it.
The more clearly you define success for yourself, the less threatening everyone else’s version becomes.
From Borrowed Metrics to Personal Definition
Most of us are navigating our careers using borrowed metrics of success. We chase titles because that’s what’s visible. We pursue roles at brand-name companies because that’s what gets engagement. We equate visibility with value because that’s what the algorithm rewards.
But here’s a question worth sitting with: If no one ever knew about your work, what would you still want to build?
Your answer to that question is where your career clarity lives.
I worked with a marketing director who was torturing herself watching peers launch agencies and build massive followings. When I asked what she actually wanted, she paused. “I want to be so good at brand strategy that CMOs call me when they’re stuck.”
Not an agency. Not followers. Mastery and trust.
Once she named it, everything changed. The LinkedIn noise became just that—noise. She started tracking different metrics. Depth of client relationships, complexity of problems she could solve, the caliber of strategic questions she could answer. Her focus sharpened. Her confidence returned.
Career Clarity: From Spectator to Scientist
Here’s a practical shift that works: stop consuming LinkedIn like a spectator and start using it like a scientist.
Spectators scroll and compare. Scientists observe and extract data. When you see an announcement that triggers you, don’t scroll past it. Study it.
Ask yourself:
- What specifically triggered me about this? (The title? The company? The recognition? The speed of their rise?)
What does my reaction reveal about what I want but haven’t articulated?
Is this actually relevant to my path, or am I comparing apples to someone else’s oranges?
This shift—from passive consumption to active analysis—transforms the platform from a source of anxiety into a source of self-knowledge.
A Stanford study on social media found that people who consciously reflect on their social media reactions rather than simply reacting experienced significantly less negative impact on well-being. Awareness creates choice. Choice creates agency.
Build Your Focus Filter
Once you’ve defined your version of success, you need a system to protect it. I call it a Focus Filter: three questions to run every opportunity, project, or distraction through:
- Does this build toward my definition of success, or someone else’s?
- Does this develop a skill I’ve decided matters?
- Will I be glad I said yes to this six months from now?
These questions are deceptively simple, but they’re ruthlessly clarifying. They help you distinguish between genuine opportunities and shiny distractions dressed up as career moves.
The director I mentioned? She started declining speaking opportunities that didn’t deepen her strategic thinking. She stopped pursuing roles just because they carried impressive titles. She said no to visibility that didn’t serve her actual goal: becoming the strategist CMOs call when they’re stuck.
Eighteen months later, that’s exactly what happened.
The Paradox of Focus
The more clearly you define success for yourself, the less threatening everyone else’s version becomes. In fact, it often becomes useful.
Someone’s promotion can inform your understanding of what’s valued in your industry. A peer’s pivot can reveal possibilities you hadn’t considered. A former colleague’s achievement can remind you what you don’t want, which is equally valuable information.
But this only works when you’re anchored in your own clarity.
Your Turn: Three Actions for This Week
First, close LinkedIn right now and answer this: What does success look like for you in the next 12 months? Be specific. Be honest. Write it down.
Second, identify one borrowed metric you’re chasing (a title, a company type, a level of visibility) and ask yourself if it actually serves your definition of success.
Third, the next time you feel that comparison knot, pause. What’s it revealing about what you want? Use the discomfort as data, not evidence that you’re failing.
Final Reflection on Career Clarity
The age of LinkedIn isn’t going away. The announcements will keep coming. The highlight reels will keep rolling. But you get to decide whether you’re a spectator in someone else’s story or the architect of your own.
Comparison will always exist. But clarity? That’s your competitive advantage.
When you know where you’re going, the noise becomes background music. When you’re building something that matters to you, other people’s wins stop feeling like your losses.
The scroll spiral loses its power the moment you remember: you’re not behind. You’re just on a different route.
Now close the app. Get back to building.
