For me, like many others, I often have people who I look up to with admiration. I want to motivate myself to be better than them. I end up comparing myself to who I see on the internet or in real life and try to use that as a motivation to do better or to keep practicing until I am better.
However, this way may not be the best way for motivation, preferably for me in many cases. As I try to do better than my classmates or a person I know, sometimes it does push me into practicing hard. Let’s take basketball as an example. The point guard who has been playing basketball for many years is who I want to take as a motivation to get better, so I use her skills and compare them with mine. I practiced hard for months and maybe two years, but I am still not better than her. That is the problem. Maybe my goal of actually being better than her was way too ambitious. I should not use someone as a motivation to be better than them, but a motivation to be better than I am now.
You will never be the best at anything because there are almost eight billion people to compete against. The most important part of motivating yourself is not only receiving the reward, but the progress itself is the reward. For example, you have never tried weight lifting or doing cardio, and have recently started. In the beginning you want to give up but push hard to achieve your body goal. Not only is that final look the reward, but the progress of becoming stronger and being able to do something you were never able to do before itself is a huge reward. I don’t think the final outcome is the main focus, but rather the progress and your journey to what you have accomplished
