This one’s a
constant debate, aint it? If you are
really good at what you do, should you indulge in self-praise every now and
then or just bottle it all up in the name of 'humility'. Now here’s
what I think. If you’re good at what you do (especially true when it comes to
your work), speak up and tell people how good you really are. Does that sound
like you’re over-indulging yourself? Hold that thought for a second. Do you
remember any one business pitch you’ve made? Or any interviews you’ve attended?
Good. So now that I have your attention, I want you to recollect the event.
Didn’t your interviewer ask you ‘what do you think are your strengths’. In
other words, he’s asking you what you are good at. Do you remember writing
anything negative about yourself in that CV you posted online? Yup, there you
go. Now think of that sales pitch you made. Did you mention any negative
aspects of your firm/company? Obviously not!!!! Can you imagine yourself
sitting in front of a prospective client and/or employer and saying stuff like
‘oh Im not all that good, don’t go by what people say!!! Im actually pretty
mediocre!!!’ Sheesh!!! That would be quite an interview wouldn’t it? And then
what about that job/deal? Well, you just kissed it goodbye !!! Or imagine this,
you own a restaurant,and a customer came asking you what’s good. Would you
instead tell them what not to try??? You would tell them what’s really good.
If you’re one of
those who is going to wait for others to talk good about you, Im sorry my
friend, but you belong to another era. Today, people are way too self-obsessed,
have too little time to look beyond their pathetic lives to appreciate someone and
even if they do, they’ll put a comment on your FB profile. That’s as far as
they’ll go. At least thats as far as most of them will go. For the few exceptions, they're the ones who are really special. But this aint about those people. Its about you.
.
It’s when we
talk good about ourselves that we actually get other people to talk good about
us. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean you should stand on top of the Empire
State Building and scream it out using a loudspeaker-“Hey, Im good, work with
me. Im the best, be with me or gimme the deal”. That would make it extremely
embarrassing and you’d probably get arrested for causing public nuisance. The point
Im making here is to have a healthy sense of self-worth. Coz only if you do,
will the world stop piling on its excretion on you. Until then, you’ll be the
world’s favourite shitting hole. and guess what, you’ll actually feel good about being the
world’s favourite shitting hole. Coz you’ll think, ‘oh well, at least I have
some use of myself’. and guess what, more and more shit piles onto you.
In fact, general
Self-worth has nothing much to do with how good you are at doing the things you
do. Its got more to do with how good you feel about yourself as a result of who
you are and not who’s in your life or what’s in your life. The day you start
validating yourself by who’s around you or what’s with you, that’s the time you
will be farthest from yourself. Because in life, people will come and go, so
will things, but you will be with yourself forever. Your relationship with
yourself is a lifelong affair. Treat it with Love. Nourish it. Nurture it.
Sure, there are times when you will fight with yourself, calm yourself down,
get yourself excited and do many other things (some unmentionable :D ) during
your lifetime. But the one thing you really should strive to be is to be honest
with yourself. This is more often than not the most difficult thing to do. As
Amish Tripathi wrote in his Shiva Trilogy ‘Delusions create the most compelling
of beliefs’ or like what Obi-wan Kenobi says in Star Wars ‘Many of the truths
we cling on to depend greatly on our own point of view’. Both mean the same
thing. Only you can fool yourself into believing what’s real and what’s not.
What’s important and what’s not. What you perceive will only ‘appear’ to be the
truth that truth will never remain. Because our mind is dynamic, what we believe
to be true one day will turn false the next day. And then, in hindsight, we
either admonish ourselves for the mistakes we made or we wish that we could’ve
gone back in time and rectified it. Both are pretty useless thoughts, coz if
you keep looking back, you’ll never move forward. Well, you might, but chances
are that you’ll either have a very sore neck or you might just bump into
something and hurt yourself even more. And when you don’t move forward, your
self-worth is the first thing that gets hit. And the hit lasts a very long
time.
A good sense of
self-worth means to first to accept the fact that we are all humans and that we
do make mistakes. And then it means you need to be able to forgive yourself.
And last but not the least it means you need to give yourself a chance to
believe that you do indeed deserve the best that life has to offer. And whoever
you are, pat yourself on the back for coming this far coz. As Robert Frost wrote,
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Its your self-belief that'll get you out of the forest and keep up the promises until you finally sleep. Now, go and make that
pitch. Or go and attend that interview. And let’s see what happens. My guess is, MAGIC. SHEER MAGIC :)
My next article will be on humility... Until then Happy reading people :)
