If you want to shatter your self-image and confidence, judge yourself against someone with different talents or experiences than you.

Really, you don’t need to be comparing yourself to anyone else anyway, at least in a judgemental fashion. But if you do, make sure you do it in a way that’s going to empower you, inspire you. If you’re 5′-8″ and weigh 155lbs., is it really fair to compare yourself to a professional NFL player? We’d all agree that’s a pretty stupid standard to try and hold yourself up to, yet we do just that every day.

You look at someone who’s wildly successful and you think, “I could never be like that. They’re so smart, so well-spoken, so talented.” Is that a helpful comparison? Hardly. All it serves to do is to make you feel worse.

On the other hand, what if you look at this other person and say to yourself, “Wow. They’re really no different than me. They haven’t done anything that I can’t do. All I have to do is do the same things they did! I’m going to find a way to get the knowledge they have and apply it to me!”

Use comparisons to help you drive yourself to the next level, instead of to knock yourself back down to where you used to be.