What Do You Really Believe About Yourself?

I grew up thinking I wasn’t smart.

What I mean by that is, I wasn’t in advanced classes in school, I wasn’t ever awarded for academic performance, and I never scored the highest on tests.

I was the kind of girl who would tear up during math tests throughout middle school and high school. I saw myself as an “average” academic performer.

Which, if you are used to comparing yourself to others, made me feel more like “less than average” as a person.

I think when we go to school, a good part of our sense of self becomes centered on our academic performance. It’s a metric that is consistently being measured for most of the calendar year. It is part of what drives us as young people. We want to do well in school. We aspire to achieve great things and be recognized in school.

I envied others who were in advanced programs; their names printed in special sections on the pamphlets handed out at year-end award ceremonies. I envied the students who were positioned as future leaders, future successful people because they had spectacular academic performance.

I always felt that I didn’t belong among them, on stage, giving little speeches accepting their “Perfect Attendance Since Kindergarten” awards.

I say all of this to share that, years later, I found that none of that thinking was true.

What Comparison Took Away From Me

I think when you spend a long time comparing yourself to others, without knowing their full story (or even understanding that there is, in fact, a part of their story you don’t know) it’s common to lose sight of yourself.

When you compare yourself to others, you highlight their achievements and their accolades that you admire.

You are taking focus off of your own achievements and qualities and focusing on someone else’s.

This makes you lose sight of your own greatness, and all of the things that you are good at. Because I was focused on how well someone did in school, how they were voted class president, how many friends they had, how liked they were, I never noticed my own strengths or what I am good at.

It wasn’t until I truly challenged myself, and that belief, when I changed my college major to cybersecurity and I enlisted in the Army. I had to put myself through test after test before I realized that I was passing those tests.

I was passing my computer programming and architecture classes in school. I was proving myself capable in my military training.

I was the girl who thought I didn’t have what it takes to be successful in a challenging field like information technology and cybersecurity.

I was the girl who saw myself as weak and incapable.

I was creating all of this evidence of what I am truly capable of after I let go of putting myself in a box by comparing myself to everyone around me.

Instead, I said:

I am going to do this.

Not can I do this?

Not can’t I do this?

But just that I was going to do it.

I was going to make a decision, stick with it, and see it through.

Let the Evidence Build

As my evidence of my capabilities came to light through each challenge, it became my fuel to keep pushing.

Keep telling myself:

I am going to do this.

I am going to get the job I want.

I am going to learn how to code.

I am going to start a business.

I am going to be seen and heard.

All of these things, I know are possible because I built the proof over the past 10 years of my life.

And the fact is that I am not better or more capable than anyone else.

I am not smarter than anyone else.

I am not a genius.

I do not have super strength.

I simply made a decision to take a leap, and I stuck with it.

I persevered against the odds that were against me, and the biggest thing against me was what I believed about myself.

The beliefs that I was stupid.

I wasn’t gifted like the others.

I wasn’t going to be successful like them.

I share this story because I want everyone who hears this to know that your own self-limiting beliefs can stop you from achieving your dreams.

Maybe there is something you want to do that you have already decided isn’t for you.

Maybe you’ve already decided you aren’t smart enough, talented enough, confident enough, or capable enough.

But what if you don’t actually know that yet?

What if you gave yourself the opportunity to find out?

You might surprise yourself.

You might create evidence that proves the story you have been telling yourself about who you are isn’t actually true.