Don’t Compare Yourself to Your 100% Self
Do you ever have days when you get things done, yet still feel you haven’t done enough? You think you could have been a little more efficient, planned your time better, and checked off B, C, and D, too. Then you tell yourself you didn’t try hard enough. And if you compare yourself with other people, it’s easy to feel inadequate and as though you’ve wasted the day.
Many of us know this experience. Even when we’ve done a lot, we rarely feel satisfied with what we finished. Instead, our minds keep tallying what’s still undone.
By the end of the day, we often feel we haven’t done well enough.
What are you using to measure yourself?
I’ve noticed that people who hold themselves to high standards often evaluate themselves in a similar way.
Instead of asking, “Given the resources I had today, how did I do?” they ask, “How close did I come to my theoretical maximum today?”
For example, I may not have slept well, my stomach may hurt, and I may feel physically unwell. On a day like that, I might be operating at 40%. But I still expect myself to work as if I were fully charged. Then I tell myself I only got 40% done, instead of recognizing that I had 40% available and used 38% of it.
Start by noticing how much you have to work with today
To change this way of evaluating ourselves, we may need to rethink what we mean by “resources.”
Our resources include our physical well-being, energy, and emotional capacity. How much we have available can shift from day to day. Illness, poor sleep, or too many demands competing for our attention can all take a toll. If we’re waiting for an important medical result, for instance, we may have less emotional bandwidth for demanding mental work that day.
Try asking yourself: How much do I have available today—physically, mentally, and emotionally?
If I have only 45% to work with today, have I spent most of that energy on things that matter to me?
If so, that’s already a pretty good day.
We don’t have to be making progress to feel that today went well.