“Every ideal is a judge. So you posit an ideal and instantly you’re in an inferior position in relationship to that ideal and that can be crushing. Okay, so what do you do about that?
Well, one answer is no ideals. Well that’s not a good answer because then you don’t have anything to do. Right, so, so, and that deprives you of a main source of pleasure which is observed a generated as a consequence of observed movement towards a valued goal so if you have a high goal, and you see any movement towards that there’s a potential is a really powerful potential kick there so you don’t want to dispense with that. But then if you set up an ideal it can judge you very harshly.
So then you have to rearrange your reward philosophy and instead of punishing yourself from, as a consequence of perceived distance you reward yourself for incremental movement forward.”
-Jordan B. Peterson