James Clear on 'Comparison'

Community Hub 🗨 Just Chatting
1

To improve, compare little things.

  • marketing strategies
  • exercise technique
  • writing tactics

To be miserable, compare big things.

  • career path
  • marriage
  • net worth

Comparison is the thief of joy when applied broadly, but the teacher of skills when applied narrowly.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

I speak for myself, and perhaps . . . probably . . . for others when I say that I have had joy, or maybe more motivation, stolen by the demon comparison.

And while my intellectual thinking mind knows and firmly believes this, somehow it will sneak up insidiously and mess with my enthusiasm. Is it subconsciously in part behind my struggles to re-establish the same guitar habits I had before the finger health issues prevented playing . . . I honestly don’t know.

But that quote sure struck a chord (excuse the poor intentional pun) this morning, so thought I’d let it be heard.

16 Likes
2

image
image961×592 56 KB

:blush:

12 Likes
3

James Clear has some good snippets.

I think many of us can’t help comparing to others, it’s something built into us as humans. One thing I heard a while ago that stuck is to instead compare yourself to who you were yesterday, rather than to others.

Which can also be hard at times!

How are your health issues going David? Are you getting more guitar time in?

7 Likes
4

Look backwards to see how far you’ve come.
Look to either side of you see those walking with you.
Don’t look too far forward to see who is way down the road and wonder why its not you.

Take your time it’s a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ not a _ _ _ _ _ _

image
image294×492 49.2 KB

7 Likes
5

This is true. Do the best you can each day and learn to let go of chasing an outcome.

If you compare over a longer timeframe then you even out some of the bumps in the road (good days vs not so good days). Perhaps my guitar playing isn’t going as well as yesterday but (as long as I’ve been practicing) it’s likely to be substantially better than it was a month or 3 months ago. It’s definitely a better strategy than looking at the mountain ahead and being overwhelmed by the scale of it

8 Likes
6

Health is good, thanks for asking JK. No reason not to be playing more frequently and consistently, but very much fits and starts.

10 Likes
7

Personally I think self comparison is self destructive; you should never compare yourself to others, it’s your hobby and for yourself not for others. If you’re taking it further than a hobby then that’s a different matter, you have to be at least as good as your contemporaries otherwise you won’t succeed.
This in my case was a big part of why I decided not to do any covers of other people’s work and just do my own thing; I have found it hard to be satisfied with my own work but that’s me trying to be a perfectionist :laughing:
Seriously, regardless of where you are in learning to play you need to just keep practicing and recording yourself regularly regardless of whether you post it on here or not, it’s the only way you can verify your progress. If someone is negative with you then they are either not worth your attention or jealous of your achievements. Life is too short to get wound up by someone who doesn’t care about your feelings, treat them accordingly.
OK rant over, it’s just something that strikes a nerve with me!

4 Likes
8

If I would make a reading list, “Atomic Habits” would certainly be on it.
I rely on wisdom from the book in the “autopilot” topic Tip: need to train your “auto-pilot”? | quantity > time!

What David says here describes how accurate you can be in your definition of success. It’s easier to scope small bits of success. A football player can score a lot of goals but what makes a good career? A goalkeeper scoring a lot of goals is rare and seldom a measure for his success as a goalkeeper. He can do a lot of saves but what does his team do?

There is seldom a jump to a ‘shallow’ success or superficial way to compare careers. the path to those metrics often holds a lot more vlaue and “true personal successes”.
In this day and age, I see more and more pretentious ads of day traders, coaches and what not, saying ‘they earned $ xxxxxxx this month’ etc. They try to make us believe we are doing worse than others and that the gap is huge. They try to create an artificial urgency while the down-to-earth business coaches will tell you to build a durable model for yourself, experiment, add and cut in small ways and get your engine running.

Same is for being a musician. You made it this far, that means you already invested effort, next to practicing, to enrich yourself. SO to me, you ARE a musician. No matter your level.
Now comparing your level to online videos is dangerous. Since some guy was exposed as being a big faker online, many youtubers made video’s on how they play their own stuff and record it themselves but mime when recording the video because on youtube, they need the perfect take and having everything right from playing to stance, lights, and what not, is a lot to do simultanuously. So you are not wrong that every ‘success’ you see, is part ‘wrapper’ but underneath IS real success of people. For some the wrapper is small, cosmetic… for others the wrapper is their business model. So if you go ff comparing, what exactly are you comparing to?

don’t get me wrong, I love it if everybody is ambitious and has a dream but as long as everybody aims for next step first and manages his/her own expecation in that every step; we’re doing well I suppose.

Many end up having some kind of success they didn’t plan or foresee when they started out.

You need 2 things to get where ‘somewhere’
1: momentum; learning, doing, failing, learning from it, doing again but a bit differently
2: direction; which can be changed at any time turning the steering wheel.

  • Success is hard to measure, especially on larger scale.
  • Our personal definition of success changes with every bit we grow
  • Much of success that is being shown online has sales purposes or serves to feed an image
  • the genuine yet unpretentious forms of success we can spot are delightful and I wish it upon everybody :smiley:
6 Likes
9

From early youth on, we are taught to compete in almost everything we learn or we start to do. Sometimes it seems as if life was a huge competition and nothing else. Be it school, sports, career, hobbys. We always have to aim for the best to succeed and those who don’t get to a certain level are not considered as “successful”.
There certainly are points in life were we have to take the challenge and other points were we truly want to take the challenge and get great motivation and satisfaction out of the game. “Comparison” to others therefore is pretty human, sometimes even helpful.
But we definitely should allow ourselves to try out things just for the fun of it, to do things without the claim to excel others or to reach highest levels and to be grateful, that we can allow ourselves to have “just fun” with what we are doing and not to judge ourselves unconsciously of being not at a point where we probably could be compared to others and we loose our mojo.
Especially, when it comes to making music - as long as one doesn’t aim to get a pro… we can just enjoy the journey.
David, I have always enjoyed everything you performed as your personality is shining through and this makes it “precious” and always worth a listen!

2 Likes
10

Yeah forget about cash flow, let the music flow and love every bit of it, when I listen to Stormy Monday, those chords G7 to Am Bm then Bbm and so on it is better than twenty-pound notes hitting my ears cheers Hec

2 Likes
11

That’s ever so kind, Andrea, and warms my heart and soul :folded_hands:

1 Like
12

Very interesting post and responses!
Most things already said that I’d want to say :slight_smile:

And honestly I don’t know how I would fare with my body making guitar learning or playing difficult - maybe I’d just give up ( hopefully NOT! ) so I have a lot of respect anyone overcoming any difficulties!

1 Like