Compare yourself to who you were yesterday not who others are today

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday leid who others are todayCompare yourself to who you were yesterday not who others are todayJordan Peterson said that.Its rule number 4 of his best-selling book, 12 Rules For Life.No one else is really like you in any deep sense, Peterson said. The conditions of your life truly are unique.You have no idea how much time and effort someone else has put into achieving the results you envy.Channel your envy into purpose.The only person you should try to be better than is who you were yesterday.The pragmatic principle of this chapter is to consistently bargain with yourself to make small incremental positive changes in your life.The idea is not only measurable but also fulfilling to see the little gradual improvements in your own life.Anyone who isnt embarrassed of who they were last year probably isnt learning enough, says Alain de Botton.Peterson encourages us to avoid comparing our progression against others but instead against where we previo usly had been.Its a great way to make progress in life.The human brain has a natural tendency to make comparisons as a system of developing logic and reasoning.You cant stop comparing. Its inevitable.But you can channel your brain to make a better comparison in your long-term interest, growth, and happiness.Change the object of comparison to yourself.If the urge to compare is too strong to ignore, measure yourself against yourself.Once you truly understand how to let go of your comparison mindset, you will see the world from an entirely different perspective.The dangers of pinning our happiness/progress with on how we measure up to others are too great to ignore.The more you desperately want to be like someone else, the more unworthy you feel. The more you desperately want to be happier, the lonelier you become, despite the awesome people surrounding you.What do you know about yourself?You are here to live your own story.Dont focus on the actions of other people, but on your own.Aim ing at the wrong thing has serious adverse consequences. It causes us to miss other important things in life.There is an endless supply of people to whom you could compare yourself and your accomplishments, but, inevitably, youll always end up on the losing side of the comparison. Thats because there will always be someone who has done something that you wished you could also accomplish says Lisa Quest of Forbes.Living in constant envy of others is not wisdom.Wisdom is facing the world exactly as it is and opening our eyes to opportunities to improve ourselves, the world and those around us.In life we only see what we aim at.The rest of the world (and thats most of it) is hidden.If you consistently focus on everything you dont have, instead of who you were yesterday and how far youve come, you will build self-doubt overtime.When you abflug aiming at something different - something like I want to be better than I was yesterday - your minds will start presenting you with new inform ation, derived from your previously hidden self, to aid you in your new pursuit and quest to become a better version of yourself.The idea is to start using yourself yesterday as a baseline, so you can at least notice the direction and magnitude of the changes you can make today.With enough information about who were yesterday, you can use this knowledge to influence your future actions so that on average you are improving over time.The key to the good life you really need is giving a damn about whats important to your growth, career and total well being.To improve daily, put your gap time to good useAnywhere from 13 hours of your day is probably spent in gap time.Gap times are those between meaningful activities but arent normally long enough to get more done. Or the time you need to recover from deep work.Whether its 10 minutes or 1 hour a day, all of us can devote a small portion of our time to learning, and personal growth.Your life and career depends on it.Commuting to work, wai ting in line, small talks at the office, small breaks in your schedule, long breaks from work and everything you do when you are not actively working on your tasks for the day.You can listen to a podcast, learn a new skill, read a book, read the articles youve bookmarked, plan the rest of your day, or better totenstill take a productive pause to clear your mind.You can cut back on other low-value activities (responding to social media distractions) to make time for learning.I make time for personal growth by making time.Spend most of your free time learning.Make most of every little spare time to get better everyday.Its not the big things that add up in the end its the hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary, says Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect.Extraordinary people dont manage time, they make time for whats important. Make time for yourself.Darren lays out a simple formula in the first chapter of his bookSmall, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCEAccording to Darren, Small, seemingly insignificant steps completed consistently over time will create a radical difference in your life and put you on the road to the career success you want and deserve.You dont need a radical process to grow or become your best self.The small choices you make daily matters.Creating a career development plan with goals and objectives and then work toward accomplishing these at a comfortable pace, bearing in mind what you accomplished yesterday.Take charge of your life. If youre unsatisfied with the present, do something different that will improve your odds of success.Stop giving a f*ck about everything you are not and start livingYour life will significantly improve if you care less about what you are not, and care more about becoming the best version of yourself.Before you go If you enjoyed this post, you will love Postanly Weekly, my free weekly digest of the best posts about behavior chang e that affect health, wealth, and productivity. Join over 50,000 people on a mission to build a better life. Courses Thinking in Models, and Kaizen Habits.This article first appeared on Medium.