Making the comparison useful instead

There is a version of this that is worth keeping. If somebody is doing what you want to do, they are evidence that it is possible and a source of method — how they prepared, what they did first, what they would skip. That turns a comparison into a question, and a question has an answer.

The move is to convert the feeling into a specific enquiry within a day. Not "they are ahead of me" but "what did they actually do in the six months before that, and which part of it applies to me". Most people never ask, and most people who are asked answer generously and in detail.