
Don’t Benchmark Yourself Against Normal - joeyespo
http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/dont-benchmark-yourself-against-normal
======
nostromo
I have a feeling few people on HN have this problem.

I bet a much more pernicious problem for people on HN is the opposite;
comparing yourself to the most successful 0.1% of your field and wondering why
you're not as successful yet.

So, for HN, I'd suggest the opposite. Take a step back once in a while and do
compare yourself to normal. Not to gloat, but to put all of your "successful
in the first world problems" in perspective.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Yep. I have a solid amount of respect for Sebastian, but in my particular case
it's absolutely vital to take a step back and take a breath once in a while.

I'm so focused on how far behind I am, and how much farther I want to go, that
it's a huge source of stress. So, whenever the stress starts to get to me, I
sit back and I compare where I am now to where I was last year at this time
(and the year before...). I realize that, even though the bank account still
isn't where I want it to be, that I can do so much more now than I could last
year; that even though there are projects still languishing, a bunch of them
have been completed.

On the other hand, I know people who are content so long as they can find
someone else that's somehow below them to compare themselves to. "I might
drink a lot, but at least I don't drink as much as..." That seems to be a trap
that just leads further and further down a hole of bad behavior. Pushing
yourself to keep pace with exceptional people is a good way to never fall into
that trap.

As badly as I want to get to a particular destination one day, I'd like to
enjoy the journey a little bit along the way. To use a PCT thru-hiking
metaphor, trying to keep up with Scott Williamson would make the trip of a
lifetime a lot less fun.

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Swizec
This is silly, benchmarking against normal is the only reprieve I get from
worrying that I'm 24 and knowing that I am thus too old to have done a lot of
things that I feel I should have by now, like publish a fiction book or two,
found a successful startup, publish a couple of academic articles of the
transformative kind to computer science and so on. At least publish any
academic articles at all.

I mean, do you know that Turing was just 24 when he published the Turing
Machine paper? And a mathematician whose name I can't remember right now,
practically revolutionized set theory at ~22.

There's a bunch of other examples like that.

Hell, I have friends my age who've published more than one academic paper.
Some of them highly acclaimed (enough so to present them at MIT)

Comparing to normal every once in a while is definitely the only way to keep
one's sanity and allow oneself to get some sleep now and anon. OP has no idea
what they're talking about.

~~~
Homunculiheaded
Don't read up on Gauss ;)

I'm just shy of 31 and I have to say when I look back 23-24 was the peak of
feeling like I was "too old" to accomplish anything meaningful.

I think one of the hardest things for me to see at 24 was just how non-linear
and strange life is, and likewise how truly meaningless it is to try to
establish a useful system of measurement and comparison between individuals.

For what life advice from a stranger on HN is worth: Get out of the game of
comparing yourself to others as fast as you can. Focus on what you think is
interesting, and also take a few moments now and again to really appreciate
the wonder that is life. Aside from being happier, you'll most likely
accomplish more if you don't spend energy casting yourself in the shadows of
others.

~~~
Swizec
Oh I know, I keep getting penalized from everyone for "not caring what anyone
thinks and wants to compare me to"[1]

But, y'know, sometimes you still want some perspective on how you're doing :)

[1] for instance my mum and grandparents keep throwing people my age who are
"starting real adult lives already" at my face, whereas I'm just playing
around with freelancing instead of looking for a job job

~~~
flyinRyan
Ugh. "playing around with freelancing instead of looking for a job". I hate
what society has become in regards to jobs. I find it so backwards that so
many people believe what everyone should do is go find some boring huge
company to slave away at until the majority of your life is over.

------
ChuckMcM
This is solid advice, and similar to the "Why settle for average?" pieces.
Basically if you convince your brain that you have 'succeeded' then you lose
your motivation to do more.

Whereas if you don't try to score it, you can keep pushing on the problem.

The challenge though is that you have to _also_ be in the frame of mind that
the journey is the reward, not the destination. If you have convinced yourself
that you will only be successful if you reach some 'endpoint' you can become
lost and depressed when that endpoint turns out to be on the other side of a
really wide chasm. I love playing piano, and I suck at it. When I think about
how not-musical my efforts at reproducing music can be, I can get depressed.
But when I'm exploring all the weird and clever ways that notes and harmonies
can interact I have a blast. It just doesn't sound like music to most people
:-).

------
noirman
Why benchmark at all?

Benchmark yourself against people "lower" than you, you feel unsatisfied;
against people "higher", you feel depressed.

Why not just do what makes you happy?

~~~
PakG1
Some people use benchmarks for various reasons other than simply measurement
of personal growth or achievement. In especially those other cases, this needs
to be considered seriously.

For example, I have a friend who keeps wanting advice on how to get better at
things. One thing I've been telling her a lot recently is to stop making
assumptions. She makes an astounding number of assumptions in everyday life,
and it leads to poor decision-making.

Case in point, she asked me if there was anything she could do to recover a
document when her word processor crashed, but she hadn't saved yet. Then she
assumed that it was an impossible task and set about writing a brand new
document. I stopped her and got her to think about her problem. She was able
to figure out that autosave functions existed in modern word processors, and
she was able to figure out how hers was configured. Bam, there's the autosaved
document.

She was ecstatic. But then I reminded her to stop making assumptions, and she
got really frustrated with me and asked, "Don't you ever make assumptions?"

If you're benchmarking your personal achievement against others for the sake
of personal satisfaction and happiness, yes, you can have the results that you
discussed above.

But if you're doing anything else with your benchmark, such as making excuses
for why you can't or won't get things done, then OP's point about benchmarking
is a very good one. There are many reasons why one might benchmark against
others. And in some of those cases, OP has a very valid point where everyone
should take heed.

------
Xcelerate
My problem is the opposite. I always benchmark myself against the best in the
world and am then disappointed when I'm nowhere near them.

------
pervycreeper
>Benchmark against your own potential, and against your desires.

In my case, doing this has been extremely depressing. This is a habit I need
to unlearn, lest it ruin my happiness and my life.

~~~
akldfgj
It's crazy. Benchmark against your recent past, not your dreams.

------
awakeasleep
Reminds me of Marcus Aurelius:

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than
himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces
aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man
aspires.

~~~
jakeonthemove
Huh, it seems to me that the first way produces both/either aspiration or
ambition, whereas the second way produces complacency...

------
vgm
This reminds me of Derek Sivers' excellent "There's no speed limit":
<http://sivers.org/kimo>

------
grn
I think that a good strategy of self-improvement is setting the bar a little
bit higher than you can reach. You can achieve much with many little steps.
Every step you take reminds you that you're making progress and motivates you
to work.

I experienced it when I was studying mathematics. I read modern mathematics
textbooks/papers at a snail's pace because mathematics is like a tall tower -
in order to get to higher levels you have to climb the lower. When I looked at
what I learned in a single day I didn't see much progress at all. But after a
few months of learning I saw that I'd progressed much.

------
brianlovin
Benchmarking yourself can be dangerous. Some people will find it motivating.
Others will find it a burden. Personally I'd rather benchmark against myself -
it's more fulfilling to beat myself than to beat some stranger. It certainly
doesn't feel good to start thinking of yourself as +20% better than your
friends.

Good thought-provoking piece.

~~~
billswift
If you really want to achieve something, you need to benchmark what you have
accomplished against your goals; not benchmark yourself against other people,
or even against your earlier self, its the accomplishment that matters, not
you.

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espinchi
I'd extend the title of the post with _... but definitely don't benchmark
yourself against the folks on HN either_.

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mind_heist
there was a similar article sometime back on HN.It spoke about achievement
(ie) if one should compare them self to Silicon Valley stars or not . It
addressed issues of peer pressure and depression among folks in the Valley. I
ve been looking for that , Does anyone recollect which article it was ?

------
npguy
It really doesnt matter as long as you are working on hard problems.

