Gregory Ciotti argues that we should compare ourselves to others—partly because we need to see greatness to perform it ourselves—but when we do so, we need to compare not the result but rather the craft. Comparisons should not demotivate—they should show us what is good, and raise the bar for us without going on one extreme (demotivating ourselves) or the other (
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Great stuff. I've always felt like the stoic approach that is common in 'zen'-ish thinking and recent personal development stuff creates a fantasy world. We have to face the realities, but we need to be more resilient. What's the thing that we can do to compare ourselves and get better, without demotivating ourselves? Thinking about craft and not exactly result is a great way... craft gives us a way to think about how to do something, a way forward, whereas comparing results is one-dimensional—almost always "I didn't do this, so I suck".
