How do you keep up?

Pivoting on our ethics investigation with the office of research integrity, I feel like a lot of academic culture is that of “Keeping up” with others and I’m realizing how impossibly difficult this can be. Often I find myself jealous/ envious/ aware of colleagues successes and progress and I think naively try to benchmark it against my own. Am I doing enough? Is what I’m doing good enough? I know, logically this is pretty textbook imposter syndrome (or at least I think, please correct me)but I don’t feel like I fraud, I feel like a marathon sprinter. How are you supposed to stay up to date/ make progress in grad school when it feels like hurdles come at you out of nowhere?

This is coming from an immensely stressful past couple weeks and an upcoming exam and I know when I get a few days to plan my own schedule / make progress where I think I need to and not on things that are suddenly thrown at me, it will settle but is this how academics live their lives? I’ve noticed it happen with my advisor when grant deadlines or reports or presentations are upon us but how are you supposed to keep up and anticipate this? I am sure it comes in time and you get better, but sometimes it feels rather sink or swim and I guess you just keep swimming.