I must have a social media presence for my career. It’s a crucial piece of my work life, but it often makes me feel terrible about myself.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been watching the many “Year in Review” posts on social media. I don’t begrudge my friends and colleagues their successes. They are doing what they should be doing to stand out. It would be good for my career if I put together a year in review (and I will, eventually). But the entire endeavor feels designed to spark a single feeling in the viewer: Why them and not me?

The feelings of missing out, of being left out, of not being “enough” – those feelings are the point. Understand that and you’re ahead of the game.

It used to be that accolades, best of lists, and glamorous travelogues were the domain of bold faced names and famous people. But now, we all can replay our lives and share the highlights, as journalist Taylor Lorenz notes. One of the gifts of social media is that we can peer into other people’s lives and come along for the ride. That’s the upside. We can root for people and bear witness to the world's sorrows and joys. We can grieve together and we can raise money and lift up voices.

I simply would not have my career without social media. I began blogging about politics and the world of work in 2005 and built my credibility and network online. Social media is a showcase for your brilliant ideas and a catalog of your offerings. But sometimes to promote yourself effectively, you need to create a little anxiety with your posts. Potential clients and partners need to see how awesome you are and feel the urgent need to hire you. In his brilliant podcast series StartUp, host Alex Blumberg notes that FOMO (“fear of missing out”) is a key element of what drives venture capital investing: if a potential investor doesn’t feel a sense of FOMO when learning of a new investment opportunity, then the deal is probably not compelling enough. FOMO is what keeps rich guys running to throw money at ideas.

We live in a world where you do need to brag and share those big moments. The key is to do it as part of a framework of creating valuable content that makes others feel good, not bad.

Every carefully chosen image and post is designed to provoke feelings that spark action. That's the business model.

No one likes to feel jealous--and a world in which social media has made subtle showing-off a default means we now have an opportunity to feel jealous several times a day. But there’s a way to manage your social media life that minimizes bad feelings and maximizes the best of you, all while being kind and generous. Here are my guidelines:

1. Give & Take: Balance your own posts between “helpful,” “communitarian,” and “show off.” I think of it as give and take (hat tip Rachel Sklar). A “give” post is advice or a tool or a podcast or a community outreach. A “take” post is me bragging. Both are essential. Alternate the posts that are simply sharing an accomplishment with those that offer good advice, or posts that lift others up. Or, every time you write a post that shares something awesome you did, you can send a “thinking of you” text, leave a kind voicemail, endorse a colleague on LinkedIn, or share something great a colleague did. Wharton’s Adam Grant has repeatedly shown that small but frequent acts of giving fuel productivity and generativity. Giving gets you out of your head.

1. Ask for help: If things on your feed are feeling too me-focused, break the cycle of bragging. Use online community for what it was invented for: advice! You have really smart friends, so why not gain counsel and conversation? Social media can be an incredible place to engage both good friends and weak ties on your silly and tough questions alike. Create a LinkedIn poll. The more we talk about how bad the internet makes us feel, for example, the more we can change things for the better. Everyone feels insecure online- so let’s be open about it!

2. Feelings are not facts: When you feel jealousy, anxiety, or inadequacy upon reading a post, know that this is the internet doing its job. It wants you to feel big feelings so you take action. But as they say, feelings aren’t facts. Acknowledge the feeling, and write something nice on your colleague’s post. And then move on. You are in control, not the algorithm.

3. Learn from your feelings: Use social media FOMO as a tool for insight into your values and dreams. If the feelings are persistent, give yourself the opportunity to take stock of your vision and your own goals. Are you feeling strong feelings because you’re not doing what you want at the moment, or because you’re fundamentally heading in the wrong direction? Momentary jealousy over a friend’s glam Saturday night is far different from a consistent gnawing when keeping up with a colleague who’s getting a master’s degree, for example. Learn to differentiate fleeting feelings from a true desire to grow and push yourself.

Everyone has a particular social media trigger. Do you feel jealous of how much money other people seem to be making? How their achievements stack up against yours? How many social media followers they have, or how often they’re checking in from exotic places? If they have kids and a partner—or if they don’t? Understand the feelings.

Above all, post according to your own value system. Your work is a long game, as Dorie Clark says, and no single social media highlight reel is going to make the difference in your career. Nor will going viral. What makes the difference is showing up, day after day, in a natural pattern of give and take.

Everyone feels social media FOMO. That’s why there’s a word for it (and a hashtag). We’re not lacking, and we’re not failures. We’re just human – and we want to be in community with each other, bringing out each other’s best.

Happy New Year! Morra