<i>> The first—and most important—thing is to stop comparing yourself with others.</i><p>I'm "yes and no" on this. The reason is that I often look at the work/process/product of others, as inspiration. There's a lot of folks that are better than I am, and it is a good idea for me to keep an eye on what they do, and how they do it.<p>What I <i>don't</i> do, is compete with others. I am not competitive, and I'm fine with that.<p>Unfortunately, that seems to be a bit of an aberration. I am <i>constantly</i> having others take a competitive stance with me, and it can add a lot of friction; when they refuse to share information, make a point of being "snooty" with me, or assume that, when I talk about my work, I'm trying to cast their work in a negative light.<p>That's not usually the case. I have very high standards, and I hold myself to them. If I will be incorporating the work of others, in mine, then I'll hold them to high standards.<p>Otherwise, I've actually found a lot of gems in things like sloppy StackOverflow examples. Their lashup code may solve my problem, and I can take their solution, and refactor it into one that meets my own bar. I don't waste any time, thinking negatively about the other person. In fact, I'm usually fairly effusive, in my thanks. The person is often coming from an academic point of view, and are not concerned about the practicalities of shipping software.<p>There's so damn much negativity, these days; often driven directly by competitiveness, that I feel I need to reduce my contribution to it.