<story><title>You Are Not ‘Behind’ (2016)</title><url>https://zackkanter.com/2016/01/13/you-are-not-behind/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>biren34</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s what I would tell my kids: &amp;quot;Odds are, you ARE behind. In any given rank ordering, 50% are below average. 90% are NOT in the top 10%&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re lucky and work hard, you can be in the top 10%, 5% or even 1% of a few areas. But even then, you can beat yourself up about not being the best--because even if you sometimes are the best at something, &lt;i&gt;sometimes&lt;/i&gt; you aren&amp;#x27;t. You can always make yourself miserable, if you choose to.&lt;p&gt;So what do you do? You have 3 choices:&lt;p&gt;1. sit there and complain about it&lt;p&gt;2. Deny the reality of your &amp;quot;behindness&amp;quot;, which makes for weak men and women (and I didn&amp;#x27;t raise wimps)&lt;p&gt;3. Or, you can realize that there&amp;#x27;s a set of skills related to managing your internal state&lt;p&gt;The best way to do this is to focus on process-oriented goals, rather than results oriented goals. In other words, take pride &lt;i&gt;in your work&lt;/i&gt; not in the output. You can lose every game, yet feel okay, if you set your goals to be play a bit better than last time--and do it.&lt;p&gt;Once you get there, you can admit others are better than you and be thankful for the opportunity to learn from them--since you&amp;#x27;re no longer competing.&lt;p&gt;This is what is meant by &amp;quot;losers focus on the winners, and winners focus on themselves&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s simple, but not easy. It takes work to achieve this, just like it takes work to achieve any useful skill. And just like any other skill, you&amp;#x27;ll get this right sometimes and screw it up at others. Just try to do it better today than you did yesterday, yes, like it&amp;#x27;s any other skill.&lt;p&gt;Good luck, I&amp;#x27;ll always be rooting for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>leoh</author><text>This is totally missing the point of the post. This post is maybe the most humane, grounded, kind thing I&amp;#x27;ve seen in a while -- and I go to the comments section and I see a bull whip. We all need to take a break and chill.&lt;p&gt;There is an antique question put to Napoleon -- after you conquer the world, what will you do? Napoleon says: I&amp;#x27;ll sit back and drink a glass of wine.&lt;p&gt;Our time on Earth is limited. If you want to spend it &amp;quot;winning&amp;quot; go on right ahead. But you need to make sure you also know you&amp;#x27;re perfectly okay right where you are, too; lest you go insane, lest you spend your whole life in a tizzy about where you rank. Which unequivocally seems to me to be a life... wasted.</text></comment>
<story><title>You Are Not ‘Behind’ (2016)</title><url>https://zackkanter.com/2016/01/13/you-are-not-behind/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>biren34</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s what I would tell my kids: &amp;quot;Odds are, you ARE behind. In any given rank ordering, 50% are below average. 90% are NOT in the top 10%&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re lucky and work hard, you can be in the top 10%, 5% or even 1% of a few areas. But even then, you can beat yourself up about not being the best--because even if you sometimes are the best at something, &lt;i&gt;sometimes&lt;/i&gt; you aren&amp;#x27;t. You can always make yourself miserable, if you choose to.&lt;p&gt;So what do you do? You have 3 choices:&lt;p&gt;1. sit there and complain about it&lt;p&gt;2. Deny the reality of your &amp;quot;behindness&amp;quot;, which makes for weak men and women (and I didn&amp;#x27;t raise wimps)&lt;p&gt;3. Or, you can realize that there&amp;#x27;s a set of skills related to managing your internal state&lt;p&gt;The best way to do this is to focus on process-oriented goals, rather than results oriented goals. In other words, take pride &lt;i&gt;in your work&lt;/i&gt; not in the output. You can lose every game, yet feel okay, if you set your goals to be play a bit better than last time--and do it.&lt;p&gt;Once you get there, you can admit others are better than you and be thankful for the opportunity to learn from them--since you&amp;#x27;re no longer competing.&lt;p&gt;This is what is meant by &amp;quot;losers focus on the winners, and winners focus on themselves&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s simple, but not easy. It takes work to achieve this, just like it takes work to achieve any useful skill. And just like any other skill, you&amp;#x27;ll get this right sometimes and screw it up at others. Just try to do it better today than you did yesterday, yes, like it&amp;#x27;s any other skill.&lt;p&gt;Good luck, I&amp;#x27;ll always be rooting for you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Retric</author><text>That can quickly become a seriously unhealthy attitude.  It’s vastly more manageable to say in every activity there is someone at the top and everyone else is behind them.  However, nobody is at the top of everything.  The trick is making sure your good enough to do what you want to do.&lt;p&gt;Don’t try to be better at everything, get better at the things holding you back and then move on.  You don’t need to be the worlds best cook to make lunch, but pick something and hitting the top 10%, 1%, 0.1% or even #1 becomes possible.&lt;p&gt;I have seen far to many overachievers who break down when they realized the vast majority of their time and effort has been wasted.</text></comment>