How many times did you wonder if you were good enough? If you would be able to perform some action? If you are the right person to do something? This and other similar questions might haunt you more or less often. How can you protect yourself and fight them off? Let us see, shall we?
What kind of judgments state if you’re enough?
You might have heard many times in your life people stating that some person is good for the position or not. That, someone, was born to be a certain kind of craftsman. That some people are better than others for different types of tasks. And that is actually true. There are people who better sing. Others will be better at mechanics. Yet another will be better at heavy lifting. Or any type of profession or activity you can name. We all have different predispositions, talents and passions.
But those this mean, that if you are not as good as someone else, in their field of expertise, you are not good at all? What do you think? Is this kind of matching proper? Is it accurate? For example, if you are an amazing cook and you will be asked to develop a very sophisticated application for iPhone, you might be able to do it, sure. But how much time and effort it will require from you? And will it be as good as the one developed by someone, who is doing this for whole his life? Will the comparison of your app and one done by a professional, be fair?
Most likely you say that this is a ridiculous comparison. That you cannot do such a comparison if you have never before done anything like that. And I agree with you entirely. Yet, we like to do that to ourselves. Not to mention, that if we are judges, we like to do this to others as well. But how do we do this to ourselves? How many times did you look at someone’s achievements in anything and say to yourself, “I should be able to achieve this as well? I should be able to lift the same weight. Lose the same amount of kilograms. Cook delicious food and be able to present it properly.” And so on.
Why are you good enough?
However, as was agreed above, if you will do such a comparison you never, or very very rarely will be content of the result. Most likely, you will be depressed, that you are no match for other people. Omitting the fact that they spend a lot of time mastering their skills. You see just the end result and your awkward trials to be as good or maybe even better than they. The thing is that by doing that, you just make yourself look terrible in your own eyes. You undermine your self-esteem seeing only how good others are.
Sure you might not be a great racing driver or chemist. You might not have a life as those you see on TV or social media. But you are an amazing person. Certainly, you have great skills, abilities and talents. You might be great at talking with people, drawing, finding solutions, fixing things. I am sure that you at this moment had a thought about what are you good at and what makes you happy doing it. And that’s it. You do not have to be second Gordon Ramsey or Tony Stark. All that matters is if you like the thing you are doing. If it makes you get into the flow.
I know that your dream might be to be like those people. Those masters. I understand, that sometimes it is hard to accept, that you are you. And you have different skills and predispositions. I was the same. I also dreamed to be as good as my mentors and a few characters from books and movies. Finally, I understand, that this is not what I really want. That, sure, they are amazing and already achieved great things in life. But they, the real people not the fictional characters, have many more years of doing, than me. Moreover, I am different from them. I have my own set of qualities and talents to show and use. When you understand that as well, you will feel much better about yourself.
What can you do to strengthen your self-belief?
If you must, compare yourself, do it only with yourself. Your image from the past. But do it the way to see how much you grow. Take, let say, three periods of time. Let it be a half year, two years and five years back. You can use different borders if you like. Important is, to look at those times and now, and ask yourself. What did I learn in this period of time? What new skills did I gain? What did I achieve? How did I transform? At what talents I am better? Always remember to look at yourself from the past and now, doing the comparison.
Now another step is to think about how do you want to grow further? Where you see yourself in next… And again choose suitable for you periods of time, Like one year, five years, and so on. Then think, what do I need to do in order to get there? What knowledge, skills, relationships do I need? How can I acquire them? Where I can look for them? Are those goals manageable for me to achieve? If not how can I chop them into smaller steps? Ask yourself these kinds of questions. Note down the answers and voila. You just create your own plan of increasing your self-esteem.
However, I want you also to remember one thing. You are enough. No matter what others says. You just are enough because you are here. That’s it. You are enough and you matter. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. So every time you see yourself in a mirror, say – “I am enough”. This will strengthen your confidence. Also, you might want to remember this saying by Albert Einstein, who states “Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Be careful how do you judge yourself and others.
Conclusion
To summarise, we talk about how we usually judge ourselves and why this way is not supportive for you. We talk also about why are you good enough and how you can strengthen this belief in yourself. In any case, you would like to know more or need some support, I would love to help you with this. Just drop me a message in the comment section.
Blessings upon you my friend.
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