There you are: late at night, laying in bed, scrolling away on your phone in the dark. You click on a picture and there she is—that unbelievably beautiful girl, with her perfect body, shiny hair, and impeccably straight white teeth.

There’s the pictures of her vacation in the Caribbean last year, and her European tour the year before, her with her super hot boyfriend, and of course her gorgeous smiling family as well. She has it all; everything put together, happy, perfect. If only you could be more like her.

I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t me on more than one occasion. If I could only look different, act different, be different than who I was, then maybe my life could be as perfect as the girl in the picture.

It used to be that the girl in the picture was only in magazines, but then she took to the T.V. screen. And then she overwhelmed the Internet. Finally, she invaded our phones. Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr… the list goes on. Eventually, it seemed that no matter where we turned that girl was there, smiling effortlessly, laughing and tossing her hair back in the breeze as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

We all know who that girl is. Whether she exists in your everyday life or she’s a public figure you’ve never met, you know her. You know because you’ve wished you were her.

The art of comparing is something I’ve gotten very good at; I think most girls and women can also attest. Society teaches us that we have to be the prettiest, the funniest, the smartest, the most successful, and the most feminine.

In preparation for all this, we compare ourselves to other girls and women to see how we measure up. Where do we stand in relation to the rest of our female competitors? How eligible are we to be the best?

We scroll through picture after perfectly posed picture, only to be left feeling jealous, empty, and hollow. We compare ourselves to compete, only to realize we can’t compete at all. And how could we?

Someone once told me that when you look at social media, at television, at magazines, that you compare your behind the scenes to their main performance. We mistakenly believe that their lives are perfect, when we have no idea what lies behind the curtain. There’s no way we can compare ourselves to someone else when we aren’t even seeing the same thing.

So how can we stop comparing, and start connecting with each other? How can we as women, first and foremost acknowledge each other for our individual beauty, and move forward into a world of mutual appreciation?

The first step is letting go. Letting go of every negative self-thought, and recognizing that no one is perfect; you’re just watching their main performance. Let go of the aspiration to be the best, and focus on an aspiration to be yourself. Let go of others’ standards and focus on your own. Let go of comparisons, and appreciate yourself as much as you appreciate other women.

The second step is to recognize your own innate beauty. You were uniquely and wonderfully made, as perfectly designed as the flowers of the field. You are here for a reason, and that reason is not to be better than the girl next to you. It’s to be the best version of you. You are your own beautiful, and you don’t need media to tell you that.

When we stop comparing and start connecting, we build a better environment for the girls who are to come after us. We establish a safe, loving, accepting world that tells women they’re phenomenal for who they are, not because they have shiny hair and perfect teeth.

When we stop comparing and start connecting, we create a network of positivity for future generations of women.