Self-improvement cannot happen along with self-deception. If you don’t even admit to yourself that you are in the dumps, how would any improvement happen? You don’t really need to announce it to the world. To yourself, you must know where you really stand. And that silent realization, I assure you, is highly transforming. You don’t even have to then try for transformation.
And remember that that transformation is not due to comparison. You do not say, “I am on the second, I should have been on the tenth, and this comparison is painful, so I want to climb to the tenth.” No, it doesn’t operate that way. Real transformation does not really have a result in sight.