Career
Throughout my career and in my personal life, I find that I compare myself to my co-workers and colleagues. Nothing new here, we all do that to some degree. However, it has been detrimental to me at times. There are times that it absolutely paralyzes me from being able to move forward. You see, I sit there in meetings and listen to others talk and think, "Wow, that's incredible, I could have never come up with that." I hate to say it, but these types of situations happen more than I care to admit. This has to stop.
I realized this problem a couple of years when I started taking inventory of my day. This exercise has me at the end of every day writing down my wins and losses. In these "sessions" I am honest with myself. Honest in recognizing that I judge myself way too harshly by comparing myself to other people and honest in the sense of what I need to improve such as taking too many short cuts ie being lazy.
In order to combat these short- comings, I decided to take action. First, to overcome my self confidence issues I decided to join Toastmasters to be able to articulate my thoughts better. Second, I decided to study my field of business in order to become more knowledgeable about issues that affect my clients. Lastly, I put in writing things that I have to work on and I review it daily. After about two years of this I have seen much growth in my confidence. This has been evidenced many times by my manager and co-workers by the comments that they have made to me.
I have learned much over the last two years and because of this and as a result, I have been more successful in achieving my goals. However, there are times when that old voice whispers to me, "You fraud. You have no idea what you are doing. Don't you know that you aren't any good?" That's alright. This is to be expected. This voice has been part of my life for many years and won't die an easy death. From now on when that voice starts with it's drivel, I will rely on the grace of those around me, make note of the error, and try to learn from it - just like everyone else.
In the end how about if we set our standard by how much we learn from our mistakes and not by whom we know.
Throughout my career and in my personal life, I find that I compare myself to my co-workers and colleagues. Nothing new here, we all do that to some degree. However, it has been detrimental to me at times. There are times that it absolutely paralyzes me from being able to move forward. You see, I sit there in meetings and listen to others talk and think, "Wow, that's incredible, I could have never come up with that." I hate to say it, but these types of situations happen more than I care to admit. This has to stop.
I realized this problem a couple of years when I started taking inventory of my day. This exercise has me at the end of every day writing down my wins and losses. In these "sessions" I am honest with myself. Honest in recognizing that I judge myself way too harshly by comparing myself to other people and honest in the sense of what I need to improve such as taking too many short cuts ie being lazy.
In order to combat these short- comings, I decided to take action. First, to overcome my self confidence issues I decided to join Toastmasters to be able to articulate my thoughts better. Second, I decided to study my field of business in order to become more knowledgeable about issues that affect my clients. Lastly, I put in writing things that I have to work on and I review it daily. After about two years of this I have seen much growth in my confidence. This has been evidenced many times by my manager and co-workers by the comments that they have made to me.
I have learned much over the last two years and because of this and as a result, I have been more successful in achieving my goals. However, there are times when that old voice whispers to me, "You fraud. You have no idea what you are doing. Don't you know that you aren't any good?" That's alright. This is to be expected. This voice has been part of my life for many years and won't die an easy death. From now on when that voice starts with it's drivel, I will rely on the grace of those around me, make note of the error, and try to learn from it - just like everyone else.
In the end how about if we set our standard by how much we learn from our mistakes and not by whom we know.
