BE UNIQUE
You Will Never Be The Best
Instead, learn to be better at the things you’re passionate about.
My entire life, I’ve put myself down for not being the best at anything. Through my high school career, I compared myself to all of my over-achieving peers. They had outstanding GPAs, were part of many sports teams, and lead loads of clubs. I felt overwhelmed by their success. In college, this feeling only continues.
And once you get out of college, you’re left feeling hopeless. Useless.
There are a lot of smart people out there, but you need to stop fixating on it. While competition is good at motivating you to try harder, it can become toxic very quickly. Soon, the focus shifts from wanting to learn something new or improve at a skill to ‘beating someone else’.
And then, when we fail (which is inevitable because failure paves the path to success), we beat ourselves up and we are the ones who end up suffering the most.
There are so many smart people out there (we are a population of 7.8 billion), it’s nearly impossible to be the ‘best’ at something. There will always be someone better, at some point in time, than you.
But, that doesn’t mean you are not or cannot be successful.
Instead of comparing yourself to others, you should put healthy boundaries for yourself. Let’s say you just started writing recently. You’re obviously not the best writer out there. You probably look up to a few people. Have you ever considered the fact that the people who you believe to be the best look up to people who they think are even better?
You can never really be the ‘best’ because the definition of ‘best’ is interpreted by different people in different ways. You might be good at copywriting, but you’re hoping to learn entrepreneurship so you follow some of the most successful entrepreneurs out there.
Everyone does this. You look up to someone you want to learn from, someone you want to be like.
It’s a cycle.
Sometimes, it’s a great, virtuous, one, because you’re striving to improve. But sometimes, you fall into the more vicious cycle of self-loathing. You begin spiralling downwards.
Don’t.
You know you are better than that. I’ve fallen into the trap of comparing and self-loathing multiple times myself.
I’ve realised, it’s not worth it.
It’s important to give yourself some breathing space. Instead of striving to be better than others (this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just remember to be good to yourself), spend time developing your passions. If work isn’t going too great, restart your old hobby. Or take a course online. Pick up a few good books from your library. There are a lot of ways you can help yourself become better.
Give yourself a personal goal, but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t achieve it. After all, the most important thing in life is improving.
