“Thinking of confidence not as a character trait but as a clear-eyed understanding of yourself puts you on the road to developing it.” from 101 Job Interview Questions You’ll Never Fear Again by James Reed
Two thoughts came to mind when I read this quote:
1. We devalue what we are good at.
When self-confidence isn’t part of our everyday, it can feel like hubris when we exercise it in our lives. But the fact is, for each of us, there are some concepts we’ve learned or just understand better than others do and/or there are tasks some of us are able to do more competently than others can do them.
For many, recognizing that fact isn’t intuitive.
Instead,
we tend to think that if something is easy for us, it’s easy.
For everyone.
For simple concepts or tasks, maybe.
Aaaannnd that takes us back to where I started: We have a tendency to think the stuff we’re good at IS simple.
We devalue ourselves and what we have to offer.
When we hold back what we offer because we don’t think it’s valuable, we not only cheat ourselves of opportunity, but we cheat others of our contribution.
2. If this quote has any foundation, then self-confidence is required for learning and growth.
When I train someone one-on-one in the use of software, I try to start where they are.
I always begin by asking them what prior training they’ve had, if any. I follow by asking them a few “how to” questions to determine their level of proficiency. I always explain my reasoning for the questions by telling them:
1. I don’t want to waste their time teaching them something they already know and
2. I don’t want to assume they know something when they don’t.
In life, as in computer training, even when we know where we want to go, it’s difficult – and sometimes impossible – to get there (or even plan the trip) if we don’t know where we ARE.
When we don’t know where we are, if we don’t have confidence in our current stage of growth or if our assessment of what’s in our current toolbox is inaccurate or incomplete.
we don’t know whether we have the resources, the prerequisites, to get to the next step or level, much less the final destination or goal.
We can stay stuck, thinking we aren’t prepared or ready to move forward.
BUT, if we have a clear-eyed understanding of ourselves, we know what we have to offer now
AND we have a sense of what we still need to learn.
I’ve known for a very long time that I’m different. Not “better” different. Because, really, “better” is relative. Better than what? The comparisons are limitless. and I’m thinking at least 50% of them wouldn’t be pretty. “Different” can imply too much trouble. too much work. weird. tiresome. exasperating. I don’t deny those adjectives. They’re not my favorite, but they’re not untrue.
I’m probably most at home with the idea of square pegness. I’ve gotten used to the fact that I usually don’t fit. It bothered me so much more when I was a kid.
WHAT THE H.E. double hockey sticks is THAT DOING HERE?
no no no no no. That has got to GO.
Somehow, somewhere, some way, the idea that I’m “doing it WRONG” had planted itself smack in the middle of my writing path, taking me on a multi-month detour that led straight into a dead end. I stopped “doing it” altogether and focused instead on the WAY I was doing it. Which again, I perceived believed was WRONG.
Ironically, the thing that triggered the paralyzing self-doubt was the exact same thing that knocked me free from it.
feedback.
~ Someone telling me my blog posts were selfish made me forget that a blog, by definition is an online journal. So, by definition, MY blog is about what I think and how I feel and how I process. It’s not a place where I write one-size-fits all articles directed at the masses in exchange for money. I intentionally don’t monetize this blog because I want to say what I want to say without outside censorship. Almost overnight, internal censorship resulted in words that were so restricted and appropriately vanilla that proofing them was like reading something written by a complete stranger. A boring stranger. KMN. I forgot that clicking – or not clicking – a mouse button is a choice every single person who reads my blog is free to make…or NOT make.
~ Someone telling me they don’t read my blog because I tend to ramble on, somehow made me count my words – instead of considering the fact that maybe they just DON’T WANT TO READ it. I took the “ramble on” feedback to mean that I needed to learn to write more concisely – instead of considering the possibility that maybe – just maybe – what I have to say just flat out doesn’t interest them.
~ Two different people tell me they sometimes have to read something I’ve written twice and I focus on the one who tells me I lost them instead of focusing on the one who wants to have coffee to explore what I said and talk about what she took away from it after the second, slower read it required and the deeper thinking it led to.
~ And most frustrating and challenging of all, there were widespread tangential comments from, and conversations with, multiple people about both my Christ-centered church and my search for joy blog posts which didn’t seem to be related to the content of what I had actually written. I had written extensively about the why and how we do things and the feedback was all about what we do – or about something else entirely. I was overwhelmed and grieved with the heartbreaking realization that we were suffering from a fatal illness and the feedback I was hearing was all about how dedicated we are to our health and how hard we work to eat right and exercise. It was a disconnect I couldn’t reconcile.
and so I shut down. no more writing until I could learn how to do it with more clarity.
Finally, after months of being unable to even open my book draft, and after finally identifying exactly WHY (a lack of confidence in my ability to effectively encode ANYthing I wanted to say), I began asking people to restate, in their own words, what they thought I said. One after another, multiple people made it crystal clear to me that my encoding was spot on. The message was clear. It was understood.
It was just rejected.
EXCELLENT!!
wait. that’s probably just a different kind of bad.
BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY!
I’m used to rejection. Being dismissed is old hat. I’m SO much better at respectfully agreeing to disagree than I’ll ever be at pretending to agree.
But being an educator and believing I had become an incompetent communicator? That was paralyzing.
This feedback led to a significant pivot point. These people were able to succinctly restate my message. They had a very clear understanding of what I wrote and their ability to precisely restate what I said – along with their rejection of it – was just the epiphany I needed to break free from this quagmire. In that pivot point moment, I saw it. I was suffering from toxic levels of avoidance. I couldn’t write. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because by NOT writing, there was absolutely ZERO chance I could create selfish, rambling, rhetoric that loses people. I had spent weeks re-reading previous blog posts with the eye of an iron glute professor armed with textbook communication theory and a psychological red pen that could berate Dr. Seuss for lack of clarity and nonsensical vocabulary.
I’m not saying I’m going to insulate myself from honest, yet sometimes negative feedback because it might derail me again. I understand the dangers of a steady diet of rainbows. I’ve paid a therapist and a voice teacher to tell me the truth. I’m going to keep seeking feedback. And NOT only from people who believe every kid who plays should get a trophy. I just need to REMIND MYSELF of ONE thing EVERY. SINGLE. time I process a word of it:
I’m a square peg.
and I LIKE being square. I think round things are inefficient uses of space. And I know the look I get when I say that out loud to someone. It goes with the eye roll you just gave me. Nobody thinks or cares about the the spacial efficiency of square objects.
