A story that I used to tell myself was that other people were just better than me at things and that was why they could do it and I couldn’t. For example I used to have a really hard time focusing on difficult problems and assumed that other people didn’t have to deal with those same struggles. I have now realized that is not the case and that it is not that other people do not face the same struggles that we do, its that they have figured out how to overcome them. To be able to focus on difficult things you have to do just that and honestly it is really hard at first to sit in that discomfort of not knowing exactly what you need to do for whatever problem you are working on.
This revelation has been so empowering to me. The fact that anything anyone in the world has achieved is something that I could likely do as well is an insanely powerful realization. Now to be clear this is not guaranteed, obviously some people are naturally gifted with certain skills but you cannot assume that is the case until you put in the work that they have to achieve such a feat. Whatever the feat might be you have to be willing to put in the work to have any idea what your potential might be in the given field of pursuit.
With this in mind you can finally set aside the bogus idea that you are not good enough and start focusing on the work that needs to be done to get you the skills you need to accomplish your goal. For example I am about six months into my BJJ journey and as of right now I lose to most people most of the time but I know that if I continue to work at it, then I will continue to grow and improve. Keep in mind also when starting a new pursuit it is likely that you will be very bad at first and that might last for months on end while you work to build the foundational skill sets associated with that pursuit.
All of this to say that you cannot assume you are incapable of any goals or pursuits you have in mind until you have put in the work. Now it may end up being the case that you start down the path of a pursuit and find that you don’t really enjoy the work needed. This is okay and part of the journey it is then more data for you to use to evaluate if this is something that is worth pursuing anyways or if your effort would be better placed towards a different goal. Growth is a journey and it is important to recognize that the people that you admire in a given field had to go through their own unique journey to get there.
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