Imagine starting a sandwich shop in New York City.
The big publication rates your shop as the third best.
Now imagine that you want nothing more than to be rated number one!
You’re angry and upset that you lose motivation to continue with your craft. Quality slides, sales slip, and, after a few years, you close your shop.
There must be hundreds of sandwich shops in New York City and you were number three! What have you done!?
There is so much incredible art and all the many wonderful experiences you deprive of others. You will lose so much business and future opportunities. All because you closed that shop. Because you were third.
To be content with the third-best is good, but better is to still want to be number one–while holding as most important your standard of excellence and the process of doing the best job possible.
When the process of "doing the best you can" replace outward accolades, you will find contentment, stability, and happiness.
You also won't kill the thing you love because it's not good enough in the eyes of others.