“The only way to improve is to play against the best.” – Pep Guardiola

When you are good at something, it is easy to be happy about your skills and then compare yourself with those with less skills. If you know a lot about programming, then you can easily compare yourself with those with less knowledge and feel good. But, if you want to improve and get better, then you need to play against the best and compare yourself with those better than you. This is not meant as a tool to make you feel bad, but to boost your inspiration and motivation to become even better.

In other words, instead of playing against pensioners in football and feel really good about being the best on the field, find some young and talented players who trick with the ball, and who run faster than you. It might not make you feel as good, and you might not score as many goals, but you will most likely improve more when it comes to skills and physical condition than you would just playing around with people worse than you.