There used to be a time when people could be really good at something in a small place. But now, with the internet, even small communities are connected to a bigger world. These days, we’re all part of a big global community, and there’s always someone out there who is better at something than you. This brings us to the idea of being hard on ourselves. It’s good to be critical of ourselves because it helps us grow and do better in life. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t have any reason to improve, and life would become boring.

The good thing is that humans often see the present as not so great and believe the future can be much better. This is a helpful way to keep us motivated and moving forward. But sometimes, being too critical of ourselves means we start comparing ourselves to others. When this happens, we forget about our own progress.

First of all, this makes us think in extremes – either we’ve succeeded or failed. We miss the small but important improvements along the way. Comparing ourselves to others also makes us focus too much on just one part of our lives and blow it out of proportion. For example, you might look back at the past year and feel like you didn’t do as well at work as your coworkers. You might feel like a total failure. But if you step back and look at all parts of your life, you could see that you made real improvements in your family life.

That’s why the fourth rule is never to compare yourself to others and to measure yourself against your own past achievements. Comparing your current results to what you did before helps you keep moving forward. If you always feel like you’re winning, it’s a sign you need to take more risks and set bigger goals.

When you check your progress, think of yourself as a home inspector, someone who examines a house from top to bottom and finds every problem. Is it just something that doesn’t look right, or is it a bigger issue? Make a list of things that need to be better before you give yourself a passing grade. Taking this careful approach will keep you so focused on your own improvement that you won’t worry about how you measure up to others.