Slightly Off-Balance

I was chatting with a friend today and she was telling me her fear that someday someone will discover she is all smoke and mirrors.  She was doubting her abilities in her profession.  The irony is that this woman is amazing!  She is top of her game in her career and is one of my personal role models.  She is incredibly smart, without being a know-it-all.

How could a woman like that doubt herself?

One answer is that part of her success can be attributed to being self-critical.  Most self-critical people I know, including myself, strive for improvement and never over-state our results.  This becomes a bigger pitfall if you compare yourself to someone who oversells their accomplishments – it becomes easy to doubt our level of success.

We also hold ourselves to a higher standard that we hold others.   I look at some of my friends and am in awe of all that they do and am surprised when they say the same thing about me.  We lovingly give our friends slack, why not do it for ourselves?

My lesson here is that if you’re going to be self-critical, you need to balance that with a healthy dose of self-appreciation!