A brief remark on Radio 4 this morning set me thinking. The interviewee was talking about qualities he had developed as survival techniques due to the type of family he grew up in. I started to wonder, “what did I learn to do really well as a result of my background?”.
The answer came easily and quickly. I am an expert – possibly a world class expert – in telling myself things, believing them, acting on them and then seeing those things manifest themselves in my life. This has to do mainly with playing small, being academically but not commercially successful, not having confidence etc. I learned to create a set of circumstances which exactly mirrored the role I adopted within my family: the quiet, clever one who was really better suited to the inside of a university or library than the big wide world.
Looked at like that, this seems to be an unfortunate quality to have. But that’s because we are drawn to judging things as either “good” or “bad”. How about suspending judgment, and just looking at the functionality of this quality? The fact is, I have learned to influence my beliefs very successfully, to the extent that the world around me complies and aligns itself with those beliefs. Just like they say in all those books about the Law of Attraction (the most accessible of which is “The Secret”), our lives turn out according to what we think, feel and believe. So I believed I wouldn’t be commercially successful, and guess what turned up? Only a modest income. But I also believed that I could achieve academic excellence, and what did I get? A good degree from a top university, and a handful of distinctions at post graduate level.
So we have to conclude that, as a function, this ability is neither positive nor negative; it is just a process that works rather well. You can use a blade to stab someone with, or you can perform surgery and save their life; the blade isn’t good or bad, just effective. It’s up to me to decide how I want to use my gift. Do I want to sabotage myself, limit my potential and keep things small, or would I prefer to tell myself a different story, paint a new picture and see how well I can influence my life by using my expertise in a more positive way? Well, it’s a no brainer, isn’t it?
These days I’m in the process of changing the script. It’s not an overnight process; if you practice something for nearly 50 years it takes a while to learn to do it a different way. If I played a musical instrument and then got a new teacher who suggested I hold the instrument in a different way, and that I could get a better sound, it would feel very awkward for quite a long time. Similarly, hurdlers (here we are back to the Olympics again) who change the number of strides they take between hurdles find it takes quite a long time to bed in. But – here’s the good news – I’m already noticing a difference.
This is just my experience. Many of us have things we beat ourselves up about, and they are as varied and unique as we are. What have you learned to do really, really well, that perhaps doesn’t serve you as well as it might? Can you change the way you use this ability so that it makes your life amazing rather than more difficult or complicated? If I’ve made you think, I’m really glad. And if you’d like to share, I’m over the moon!
