Comparing yourself to others
I do it. A lot.
Not with mentors, managers, or anyone else that's "a cut above". With peers: classmates, co-workers, and (sadly) friends.
I, to some extent, blame my parents: they've constantly compared me to other kids. And, as I've (half)-joked before, your parents live in your thoughts for the rest of your life. A curse, but, once they've passed, bittersweet.
As mine are still alive, it's nothing but awful. I, like them, compare myself to everyone, and every time I do it, I get angry. And ashamed. Nothing makes me feel worse about myself.
Of course, I've been told (so often, by myself) that it's dumb to behave that way. I end up having less fun, and slowing myself down.
But tendencies that come from deep in the subconscious don't listen. Frequently, the arguments and advice against bad behavior feel so shallow, so canned, so generically unhelpful, that you consistently ignore them.
Here's some advice that has worked for me, though:
On comparing yourself to others
1: Give yourself permission to compare and compete. However...
2: Always remember to pause and reflect, to see how far you've come.
Say you're in a class, and you, like me, compare yourself to your peers. You see that, while you're good, there are people that're doing better.
The traditional advice here is to not compare yourself with others. Assuming you're like me, that advice doesn't help at all. Even if I acknowledge my feelings and replay the traditional advice in my head, I can't help but compare.
So, instead, give in to competition. Observe why others are doing better. Copy. Learn. Practice. And in the next class, try to be better than them.
Crucially though, you must implement the second piece of advice: as you compete, you must pause and reflect on how far you've come. Look at all the progress you've made, share achievements on social media, do beginner exercises to see how easy they've become. Competition is intense, but it helps people advance and level up in amazing ways. To create balance in your progression, you need to reflect and see how far you've gotten.
Counterintuitively, the more you do this, the less competitive you'll be: you'll start tying your satisfaction more to your progression, rather than the ability of others.
Other notes:
- Try not to confuse competitive energy with hate. There is some dislike for others that'll naturally seep out, but too much of that and you'll end up with aggression. That isn't what we want — we'd like to channel energy into getting really damn good.
- Know that nothing, not this advice, or any advice, will work when you're "in the moment". You'll find out that someone you dislike, who doesn't do nearly as much work as you, was praised, promoted, or selected — and you'll lose your mind. In those moments, know that the only thing that will help is 1. letting yourself feel the emotion, and 2. once you're ready, breathing, reconnecting to your body. Only then can you start thinking logically, perhaps through the above advice.