HOW COMPARISON SHAPES TEENAGE CLIMBERS
From a very young age, we learn to admire the people who seem stronger, taller or smarter than us, turning them into our heroes. Competition feels like a fun game, and our friends are simply playmates. Admiration comes easily, effortlessly, and it feels good to imagine ourselves becoming a little more like someone we admire.
But at some point, that innocence starts to blur and the question becomes heavier. When does “I want to be like them” turn from inspiration into a quiet question of “Why am I not like that?”
And the answer is usually found in adolescence. As we grow older, admiration does not disappear, but it starts to mix with uncertainty, self-awareness and the pressure to figure out who we are. The comparisons that once felt harmless begin to land deeper. We stop measuring just our skills and start measuring our identity.
That is the moment when social comparison stops being a background habit and becomes something that shapes how we see ourselves, how we feel around others and what we believe we can become.
What Is Social Comparison?
Social comparison is a timeless construct, formally introduced by Leon Festinger in 1954, but the idea itself is something humans have done forever. The basic premise is simple: we all have an internal drive to understand who we are, how we’re doing, and where we stand. Because objective measures don’t always capture the whole story, we end up creating our own internal scale based on the people around us. We evaluate ourselves through others by measuring our abilities, behaviours and progress in comparison to theirs.
Importantly, this isn’t something we consciously decide to do. Children don’t wake up thinking, “Let me assess my self-worth through everyone at school or everyone at the gym today.” It just happens. It’s natural, automatic, and it shapes how we see ourselves long before we even realise it’s happening.
Social comparison shows up everywhere in life. One of the clearest examples is school. Grades create a built-in ranking system. Teenagers grow up inside a structure that constantly tells them where they fall among everyone else. Even if they understand that ability is complex and multidimensional, the system around them still teaches hierarchy as if it’s a straight line. And because objective measures rarely capture the full nuance, teens often default to this linear scale to understand who feels ahead and who feels behind.
The same thing happens in climbing. Adolescents see who tops the route first, who needs fewer tries, who the coach praises, who moves with more confidence. They might understand strength and technique better than younger kids do, but they still pick up on who seems ahead in a very straightforward way. So again, comparison becomes the lens through which they interpret their progress.
Is Social Comparison Always Bad?
Not necessarily. Comparison can motivate us, guide us and help us improve — but it can also knock us down, especially during adolescence when identity is still forming and everything feels a bit louder, a bit sharper.
Psychology distinguishes between upward comparison and downward comparison. Teenagers do both. Downward comparison usually makes them feel good and capable, even if it doesn’t teach them anything new. Upward comparison is more complicated. Sometimes seeing someone more skilled can inspire them, spark curiosity or create a desire to grow. But when the gap feels too big, the exact same comparison becomes painful. They might feel discouraged, ashamed or decide they’re simply not good at something.
This is where the idea of the Maximally Effective Standard comes in. It means that comparison helps us the most when the other person is better, but not too much better. A small gap feels achievable and motivating. A huge gap feels impossible and defeating.
For teenagers, this sweet spot can be incredibly narrow. Emotional regulation is still developing, the stakes feel higher, and performance can easily be mistaken for identity. When a teen compares themselves to someone miles ahead — whether in school or on a climbing wall — it becomes easy for their joy to evaporate. They stop seeing comparison as information and start seeing it as proof that they don’t belong.
When Comparison Doesn’t Stop in Adulthood
Although social comparison peaks in adolescence, it does not disappear once a person turns 18. Many adults still compare themselves intensely — in climbing, at work, socially — simply because they never learned a healthy way to process comparison in their teenage years.
Without tools or strategies, comparison becomes habitual, automatic and emotionally loaded. This is why some adult climbers feel intimidated in the gym or avoid climbing with people they perceive as stronger. They’re experiencing an old pattern that was never resolved, not a new weakness.
Where Comparison Becomes Visible
Imagine two teenagers at the gym, Nancy and Eva. Both care about climbing, both want to improve, and both are in that stage of life where everything feels a bit more personal. Nancy shines on slabs and tiny footholds. Eva thrives on power and dynamic moves.
One afternoon they try a hard boulder with a massive dyno. Eva sticks it in two tries. Nancy can’t even get close. Even though Nancy usually climbs that grade when the style suits her, this time she doesn’t. What she sees is Eva doing it and herself not, which quickly turns into a deeper, more uncomfortable question about what this moment says about her as a climber.
That is the teenage layer. Comparison is no longer just about performance; it becomes tied to identity. Who am I? Where do I fit? Am I good at this? And because at this age they are in the middle of figuring all that out, even one small comparison can suddenly feel bigger than it objectively is. A single missed move can turn into a story: everyone else is progressing, I am stuck, maybe I am not good enough for this.
And then the cherry-picking trap appears. Teens rarely compare themselves to just one person. They start collecting everyone’s best qualities and building a perfect climber in their mind, almost like creating a custom character in Roblox. Someone’s power, someone else’s flexibility, another person’s coordination, another person’s confidence. They keep adding traits until the climber in their mind is not real at all. And then they measure themselves against that imaginary standard. No wonder they feel like they are falling short — you cannot win against a fantasy, especially when you are still trying to figure out who you are.
So now Nancy is frustrated, confused and slipping into self-doubt. What could have been a simple mismatch of styles is spiraling into insecurity and the feeling that she is behind. And when teens internalise these moments, the consequences can stick. They might withdraw from the sport, avoid challenges, hide their struggles or quietly convince themselves they are not good enough — all because a comparison went unfiltered and unprocessed.
The Unseen Heroes They Need Most
When comparison shakes their confidence, who holds the space for them until it settles? The best answer is usually their parents.
Parents are the first emotional translator in a young person’s life, the person who can help them make sense of their experiences before those experiences harden into beliefs about who they are.
If Nancy feels safe enough to share her worry, she has already won half the battle. Her parents can help her:
understand that different strengths do not mean better or worse
separate I cannot do this yet from I am not good
step away from all-or-nothing thinking
enjoy climbing with her friends without turning them into rivals
reinforce that she is growing for herself, not to outpace someone else
When parents hold that role with calmness and consistency, teenagers learn something much deeper: that climbing can be a place for joy, curiosity and growth — not a scoreboard for self-worth.
