I’ve noticed our four-year-old son becoming increasingly aware of those around him. As well as wanting to wear shorts (and his cap back to front) like his friends he is also beginning to measure himself against others too.

A certain amount of competitiveness is in our nature. It is something we all do. If you are four years old, wanting to be as fast as Theo or jump as far as Seb can be fun.

Yet modern society fuelled by social media is making ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ a habit for too many. This can limit your future development and even lead to mental health issues.

It is very easy to fire up Instagram and see other people living a perfect life. Or a contemporary on LinkedIn getting ahead in their career.

By measuring ourselves against others we are choosing to set unrealistic targets. Why are they unrealistic? Because we only control what we do, we cannot control what others do.

In trying to beat our ‘competition’ we can seek out shortcuts. We can lose track of where we actually are, let alone where we need to be aiming for tomorrow, next week or next quarter.

Instead always measure how you are performing against yourself and nobody else.

By all means learn by watching others, see what they do well (and less well) and carefully think how your own performance can be improved.

Just don’t get bogged down in ranking yourself against your peers or workmates.

If you find yourself doing this, break that habit by evaluating how you are doing by asking yourself these five simple questions:

How did you perform in that meeting/pitch/presentation/media interview today?

What would you score yourself out of 10?

What did you do well?

What could be better?

How will you work to make these things better next time?