Mental Script: Your inner voice, your internal dialogue, the words you replay in your mind as you reenact your experiences.

You sit down at your computer after running errands, picking up your kids and cleaning the house. It was a good day, you kept your cool, you finished your to do list. Now it’s time for a break. You stop by Instagram and start scrolling through your feed. As you turn off the computer to go to bed, you no longer feel like your day was a success.

One friend’s child just won state in speech and debate, another mom, with more kids than you, posted an amazing picture of her body and your co-worker just shared about the book she wrote that is about to get published.

What at first felt to you like a successful day, now feels small and unimportant. Sure you held the important things in your life together, but your son just got cut from basketball, you didn’t work out today like you promised yourself you would and you still haven’t started the business you’ve been thinking about and longing for.

With this new frame of reference, your once successful day now feels worthless. Your focus has honed in on what you didn’t achieve compared to what everyone else did achieve.

You have a short break at work in between meetings. Your boss just commended you on the project that was due this morning and your presentation went well. It’s been a good day. You drop into your Facebook account. As your break ends, the day doesn’t feel so great. One friend just got hired for his dream job, another bought the sports car he’s been eyeing for sometime, and your cousin just had his 15th wedding anniversary and celebrated it with a trip to Hawaii with his wife.

The success of your morning is quickly lost. You didn’t get the promotion last week that you had been hoping for. Your old jalopy that you’ve been keeping to save money is a piece of junk that your embarrassed to be seen in, and the fight you had this morning with your wife is just one more piece that demonstrates your total failure.

Social media is changing the way we interpret our experiences.

Where we once found joy and success, we now see only our failures and inadequacies as we compare ourselves and all the struggles and challenges which we know are present in our life to the perfection someone else is presenting to us. We are comparing our reality with someone’s cropped and filtered life–a view where all the mess, struggle and failure is carefully hidden away.

This skewed perception of our thoughts can completely change how we talk to ourselves and interpret our life events. We base our mental scripts off what we believe we know about our lives and the world around us. We know all the dirt and scum of our lives, but may believe the reality of others lives to be clean and shiny. Compared side by side, it makes our dirt feel even more caked on and undefeatable. Where we once saw progress, we may now see pathetic, failed effort.

What we achieved has not change, just our view of it. It is good to recognize what we have achieved. It is even better to hold a realistic perception of our achievement when comparing to others, and we are all constantly comparing to others, more so than ever before in today’s world of social media.

You can change your internal response to social media.

Here’s how:

1. Get off the computer, tablet or phone and find joy in the tangible pieces of your life.

Sometimes the best strategy is avoidance. When feelings and influence is too negative and too powerful, remove it from your life. When you are feeling down as you see everyone else’s success and only your failure, stop looking at their success and start looking at and acknowledging the beautiful things in your life.

2. Know your limits

Moderation truly is a virtue. If you want to participate in social media, do so, but set limits. How much time do you want to spend looking at the lives of others? It’s great to stay in touch, but don’t do so at the sacrifice of your own well-being. Be mindful of when you are no longer enjoying it, but it is instead dragging you down.

3. Monitor your mental scripts

If you would not talk to your friend, child or spouse about the events of their day in a particular manner, don’t talk to yourself that way either. It takes a concerted effort, but be mindful of what you are telling yourself, and if it’s not kind and encouraging than refrain.

4. Be a realist

Don’t set others on a pedestal. All your friends, all the celebrities–they are human and fallible and imperfect, just like you. They are progressing and struggling, winning and failing just like you. Your life is different, but that doesn’t mean it is any worse or any better than the picture perfect, edited life you are seeing on you phone screen.

5. Be a cheerleader

Cheer for your friends, and the random person you engage with on social media. Be a source of encouragement and light. Be careful with the way you talk to other human beings who are also facing challenges. Do all these things for yourself too. Sometimes posts on social media are seeking to fulfill a need. If you can help someone meet that need, if you can give a little more kindness or goodness to their life, then do it!