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As humans, we sometimes compare ourselves with others even if we do it unintentionally.
It’s a healthy activity provided the comparison is being made to motivate us to do better, to achieve more.
However, if it makes a person feel inferior or lowers their self-confidence, then it is time to take a step back and focus on one’s uniqueness.
It is quite natural that there are going to be qualities, skills and talents where others may be better than you.
Conversely, you too have qualities, skills and talents that are unique to you or areas where you are better than others.
Don’t let your mind play tricks with you to undermine your self-confidence.
Instead focus on the positives by honoring your strengths – those things that you are naturally good at or have become good at through practice and effort.
When you are connected with your Inner Self, it becomes easier to see your strengths and understand your place in the Universe’s scheme of things.
Here’s an exercise that I did recently with a client to help her understand herself better as she looks at a challenging career move.
Take a clean sheet of paper and make three columns for your different types of strengths.
Label the columns as Natural Strengths (like writing, cooking, painting); Special Learnt Skills (like driving, accountancy, dancing, computer training); and Positive Character Traits (kind, friendly, trustworthy, loyal).
Take 10 minutes to brainstorm and enter your strengths in each of these columns. You would be surprised to notice that the list is not as empty as you might have imagined. If there is less strength in one column, there may be many in another. The total of all your strengths remains!
Just think, if you could acquire strengths in some areas through learning and training, surely you can acquire others as well in perceived areas for improvement?
This way, you will end up feeling more capable and better about yourself. You’re more likely to start tackling some of those things you’d like to be able to do!
How do you remind yourself of your strengths and use them to achieve your goals?
I’d love to read about your special method to keep your moral going in the comments box below.
Taking charge of your career requires knowing your strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement. It also means having the confidence to step out and raise your visibility.
If that sounds like you, then you want Karmic Ally Coaching’s Confidence Checklist pronto.
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This is a great exercise and one I will try. When I get stuck I find myself going to friends to ask what they see in me and what they see as blocking me from moving forward. This is great for self motivation when my go-to is not readily available. I do like the quote that while you were arguing whether the glass was half full or half empty … I drank it .. signed, The Opportunist. I like it because it reminds us that we often overlook opportunities right in front of us – because we spend too much time trying to justify or excuse. Thanks for sharing!
I love the quote, Tamara. Carpe Diem!
This is a great exercise to do! Knowing about our strengths is very important. I do 15 minutes power walk everyday, and there is only one rule, which is to think about what I have today and to be thankful. I heard that “gratitude is a rich soil to plant our future” so I do gratitude walk followed by 10 minutes journal. Those exercises clears my mind and it has been working well for me! Thank you for sharing!
Starting the day with exercise and gratitude for all that one has is a great way to strengthen a positive mindset and set the stage for better things to come, Kaz. No matter what the day brings, we are ready for it.
This is such a cool idea and fun! Thanks so much Vatsala 🙂 Always a good thing to remind us of our own skillsets and how good it is to learn something so relevant to our own confidence 🙂 Awesome post!
Thank you Joan! Those of us who make it our purpose to motivate others need to remind ourselves that we too have gifts to boost our confidence when the chips are down. 🙂
Oh my goodness – what a cool exercise!! This is a fun way to get unstuck, learn something about ourselves (or remind us of skills we’ve forgotten about). Love this post, Vatsala!
It is, isn’t it Deb. 🙂 Even the best of us can sometimes feel the pangs of self-doubt, especially when something we worked hard to achieve didn’t produce the desired result. That is the time to remind ourselves that we have what it takes and this exercise comes in handy as a morale booster.
What an excellent exercise Vatsala, one which makes you sit back and see what you have going for you and where your strengths are. I used to really hate speaking to groups of people, I was extremely self conscious and nervous when doing it. A friend took me through a similar exercise that showed me even with my own misgivings, I was actually good at doing this.
So to test this I worked as a teacher in higher education for a while to grow my experience in this area. It started out being nerve wracking and every day was full of doubt, but after a while I found myself decidedly enjoying the whole experience. I would never have tried it if not for this sort of exercise.
Great post, thanks for sharing it. Cheers, Ian
Another success story, Ian. Hurrah!
God Bless your friend who helped you to find a talent and skill that you had but were unaware of. That is a true friend.
Stepping out of our comfort zone and trying something that banishes a limiting belief is so liberating. Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
I find that if you know what you enjoy doing as part of your strengths a pattern will start to show.
For example, one of my strengths is wordpress security. I’m very good at it, but I don’t enjoy doing it. I would rather see a larger pattern of my strenghts that are enjoyable. I truly believe if you love what you do, then it’s not work.
This exercise is great because it really opens your eyes to the possibilities you have within yourself.
Thank you Gisele for your observation on possibility thinking.
I agree with you that if one can do what they love, then it is not work. It becomes a passion. As a careerist, we do find limitations in terms of what our employer wants us to do based on our technical strengths and aptitudes ignoring the element of enjoyment. The onus is on us to improvise and find the sweet spot.
That is something that I touched upon in my teleseminar on 5 Reasons Your Job Hunt is Failing.
I would add a 4th column to that page “Enjoy”. If you have the strength, skill and traits to do the job make sure you will find it enjoyable as well.
You have a point, Joe and yes, that can be added. However, many times, there are professionals who are adept at many things but don’t actually enjoy doing them. A case in point, when I was in school, I was selected for a Group dance performance for our House Annual Function and in the middle of practice, the Dramatics teacher walked in, said something to the Dance Master and I was out of the dance and shoved into the English play because it was decided that my English diction was better suited to the play.
As a 10 year old, it was painful. The fact that I was the lead (I played the Sheriff in the play, The Sheriff of Nottingham) and even won an award did nothing to assuage me because I enjoyed classical dancing more than memorizing lines and getting into makeup and costume. I love going to the theater and did a lot of plays through out my school years in lead roles but did I enjoy it? Maybe, but not as much as dance. 🙂
What a wonderful and valuable exercise. When I get stuck, I often do a mental roll call of all my natural and learned skills. Usually, that gives me the motivation to keep going. I recall during my years as a career counselor that the greatest limitation to an unemployed professional was the damage to their self-confidence. They often believed their acquired skills only fit the job hey had. They didn’t own them. This exercise is so easy & useful.
We seem to have a similar strategy to keep ourselves motivated when under fire, Roslyn. If I’m badly stuck and know the Gremlins are taking over, I sometimes look at myself in the mirror and repeat all the wonderful skills and talents that I can think of, whether natural or acquired. Sometimes I even do a bit of self-talk to my mirror image and say ‘ You’ve gotten through worse, make yourself a cup of coffee and do it!’. A bit of self-help pep talk never hurts. 🙂
What you are saying about unemployed professionals forgetting about their non-work acquired skills is so true. Maybe it is the shock that they have lost their job, especially in a bad economy,that makes them forget that their is more to them. Also, many of us who don’t maintain outside work interests start to identify too deeply with our work and job title and feel lost until we are able to rediscover that we are valuable with transferable skills. Thanks for bringing up the point, Roslyn.