Learning anything new, you need to have some standards to judge yourself against. How do you know that you are making progress – and how much?
One way is to look at the World’s expert at what you are trying to learn, and see how close you are to them. However, if you judge yourself against other people, you will only get disheartened. Effectively, every day you fail by your own standards of success until the day when you actually become better than your idol.
Instead, if you decide simply “to do better than I did yesterday,” it is possible that every single day you succeed. Even if you are just 1% better than yesterday.
Also, what happens when people who judge themselves against others eventually beat those other people? They loose momentum. You’ve passed your benchmark, and now you’ve got others focussing on trying to beat you.
Whatever skill it is you are trying to learn, don’t look at the most successful person in the World and try to be better than them. Instead, judge your own progress, day-by-day, always trying to improve on your previous performance. You’ll be happier, less likely to give up – and will be able to improve forever.