“I can’t draw.”
“I don’t do detail.”
“I can’t sing.”
“I’m not confident.”
Most of us find ourselves talking or thinking in absolutes about some aspects of ourselves. Most of the time that doesn’t cause us much or a problem. Maybe we can just avoid singing or drawing and perhaps we don’t mind, so it’s not a big deal.
Sometimes, however, it does get in the way. With seemingly small things like drawing or singing, it might stop you being able to join in with some things. Singing or drawing with kids. Playing Pictionary. With bigger things, it might feel like it rules you out of things that have a bigger impact on your life:
“I’m not confident. I can’t make new friends. I can’t introduce myself to people.”
“I don’t do detail. I could never be trusted to get somewhere on my own.”
The thing with absolutes is: they have a grain of truth at the centre of them, they are just too rigid and too extreme. That stops us from ever engaging with these things that we feel we are no good at. That means we never get to practice and we never get to improve, which in turn means that we stay exactly where we are.
If there is something like this for you and you recognise any of these absolutes, here are two ways of building a more flexible approach:
Being more specific
“I can’t draw” is an absolute term. It is general, and it is vague. Taken literally, we must assume you can’t draw anything at all. Can’t draw a line, a square, a smiley face. Is that true? Or is it something more like this:
“I am not brilliant at drawing. I can draw basic shapes but my animals don’t really look like animals, especially compared to drawings I see from other people. My ability is probably at a 3/10 in the grand scheme of things.”
Now that is more specific, which also makes it more realistic.
We can do the same with “I’m not confident.”
“I find it really scary to introduce myself to new people. I feel awkward and uncomfortable. That is worse in a work or social setting, but to be fair I can speak to people in shops or restaurants, to ask for things. I don’t feel comfortable being centre-stage, but I can be more at ease when I am in a small group with people I know.”
More specific again, and more realistic. It also helps me identify what I can do, not just what I cannot do. It might also help me identify areas where I might be able to gently practice or improve things, which brings us on to another way of building flexibility.
Adding “…yet.”
“I am not brilliant at drawing…yet.”
“I am not very confident with this…yet.”
Absolute terms leave no room for manoeuvre and they suggest that things are fixed. But that just isn’t true. We can all make improvements on things, given the time and the opportunity. You might never be Leonardo da Vinci, but you might be able to learn how to turn those basic shapes into something recognisable, given support, guidance and practice. You might never want to be completely centre stage, but given time and opportunity, maybe you might be able to get more comfortable with how to introduce yourself to people and be more at ease in new social situations.
Flexibility in our thinking, rather than absolute statements, gives us more room for possibilities, and can also feel less harsh, and less judgemental.
Something to think about
Where do you see this playing out for you?
Something to do
Sometimes when we feel we are “no good” at something, we have this sense that the people who are good at it just have some innate capacity for it. That might be right to a degree, but there are also things we can learn and practice. With drawing, things like Draw with Rob are great – basically learning how to make basic shapes and turn them into pictures. For confidence, that might be picking up on tips, observing and learning from other people about how they say hello, or how they deal with nerves.
Either way, you don’t have to do it on your own.
Thanks for reading! Until next week,
Ted
P.S. One that comes up for me a lot is "I am not organised" and that was a barrier for me to starting a weekly email! I was sure I would either forget or just be unable to make it work. Having the more flexible approach of "I am not the most organised person in the world but I make things work" was enough to get me started, and it turns out I can make it work.
Who knew?
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