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I used to be competitive. I used to play games because I wanted to win more than anything else. I used to want to get the best grade in a class or to win elections or to get picked for chairman positions in organizations. I used to be the kind of person who saw others’ success and became even more driven to succeed.
When I graduated college and entered the adult world, that competitive nature started to lessen. In law school, I didn’t so much care about being at the top of my class. I still wanted good grades, but not in that driven, hyper-competitive way. I cared enough to get Executive Editor of the journal, but not enough to get Editor in Chief. And once I went to the big law firm, things really started to slip. I just didn’t care anymore.
The transition was complete when I became a mother. I’ve lost all my competitiveness. I won’t say I’ve lost my ambition because realistically, I do still have big ambitions, they’re just not in the corporate world anymore. But I have lost my drive to compete. And with it, I’ve realized, I’ve lost some of my self-confidence.
In the past, a peer’s success was just another reason to try harder. I was happy for my peer and I knew if they could do it, so could I. Now, not so much. Every time I see someone else succeed, I die a little bit inside. I believe more and more that I can’t do it. That I’ll never be as successful. I’ll never be good enough.
Every time I see someone I know or follow get published or have a post go viral or take amazing photos, I fall another step behind. I give up a little more. I resign myself to mediocrity, knowing that I’ll never be that good. The voice in my head telling me I can’t do it gets louder every time. It becomes almost paralyzing, pinning me down to the couch or into the bed. Why even bother trying? You’ll never be that good, so what’s the point?
I’ve dipped my toes in a lot of different waters over the last two years, trying to find the right fit. I can’t help but feel that nothing is right. Sometimes I just want to give up.
But god, I didn’t used to be this way. How can I reclaim the confidence I felt when I was a teenager? How can I get back to that place of limitless possibilities and no fear?
I’m sorry for the self-indulgence in this post. I guess I’m just having a bad day. Do you ever face this kind of crippling self-doubt? And if so, how do you deal??
Seriously?! You’re the most accomplished (almost) 30-something I know! There’s nothing wrong with trying everything, and that in itself is amazing and should feel fulfilling. Most people never try anything new at all. I feel the same about competition. I no longer get a hot flash every time someone one-ups me. But I think that is called maturity ;} Inner peace and balance is optimum. Not rat-race competition.
Try to do things without giving a damn how they will “measure up” to others. It doesn’t matter at all, especially in these bizarro times of You Tube celebrity and Apple ownership craze. The whole concept of competition is getting grossly corrupted anyway, so it’s no wonder incredible intellectuals like yourself are digging in your heels against the madness. Modern society and competition therein is becoming feverishly savage over social status and material possessions. Celebrate that you find yourself up high on the riverbank refusing to sink OR swim!
Didn’t you climb Mt. Kilimanjaro? Who DOES that? No one.
There’s nothing wrong with experimentation and searching for a niche, but there’s a problem if you’re waning in self worth. It seems to me that the mothers I know give so much of themselves to their children that they completely neglect themselves. Make sure you are doing as much for yourself as you are for your family. Your husband needs a happy wife, and your baby girl needs a happy mother who exemplifies the utmost confidence. She is absorbing EVERYTHING you say and do, and maybe absorbing inner peace and balance is better than learning ruthless competitiveness?
♥ ♥ ♥
Oh boy, there must be something in the air. I’ve been feeling this way too. But I was totally inspired by E’s comment above. I found myself saying “yeah!, YEAH!” to every line. I agree with the inner peace and balance thing, and do attribute a good part of it to maturity. But like you, I am still struggling to find what truly motivates me if it’s not the drive to be the best. I want to stay balanced but not indifferent. I want to be motivated, but not to win the rat race. I want to give my all without being depleted. The big question is HOW?
Embrace yourself with zero comparison. Sometimes the comparison is not setting the bar high enough in the first place. What lights that fire inside your soul? That is your true self-potential. Nobody can even compete with that because it is only yours. I wanted to say so much to you after reading this, but E really nailed it! I am going to have to check out his blog now!
Agreed! Don’t try setting a bar at all, because the bar doesn’t actually exist! It’s so hard for we humans to think non-linear without the concept of time and age, and of labels and levels.
A friend of mine (you know her, she was one of my bridesmaids) recently told me she took a job as Editor in Chief of a local magazine because she went to a wedding and thought everyone there had awesome jobs, and she felt left out because she hasn’t been working for 2 years, by choice. Although I applaud her for taking the job and working her butt off, that’s not a good reason to take a job right? Don’t do something to satisfy a short term urge or self doubt, you’ll get bit in the ass later
Keeping up with the Johns is so 1950s.
I think feeling like this is such a struggle for bloggers. There is always a blog that looks better than yours, that has more traffic, whose house looks more beautiful, who seems to have all their stuff together. I struggle with this a lot, and it is one of the reasons I don’t read very many blogs any more (so I don’t comment and I don’t drive traffic to my own blog and so my stats are low and blah blah blah). There are two things I try to remember:
1. Someone else’s blog is their own “best foot forward.” Their house outside the frame of that beautiful photo may be a complete disaster, their kids may be total handfuls, and their relationship with their partner may be totally hollow. Just because it *looks* pretty doesn’t mean I want to live their life. I want to live mine.
2. I want to feel good about what I’m writing. I want it to sound like my voice, my topics, my viewpoint, my style. When I start getting jealous about other people’s stuff I start copying it, and then all my passion for what I am doing fizzles. When I just focus on whether I’m doing my own best work, I do my best work.
I’m so sorry you are having a bad day with these feelings, and I know how hard they can be to carry!
I’m sorry you’re having a bad day but am so glad you decided to share it, rather than bottle it up inside. We can learn from and find comfort in knowing that we are not the only ones who have these feelings and experience these doubts. I can totally, 100 percent relate – must be something in the air these days as I have been feeling the same way!
LIke the others, I really really get this. I am so grateful you shared this. Because I can look at you and see confidence and youth and SO MUCH TALENT and forget you have days like this. I have more than I care to count or think about it. They suck and they are just part of it. I wonder where to put my ambition and drive to the be the best, when, now with writing, I really fucking care, but also….I know I am no Hemingway or Bronte. Not yet. Maybe never, and I just don’t know. And some day, when you have a post that goes viral, we’ll all be cheering for you and also laughing, because you know what? Going viral is so random. I am sitting here nursing a swollen ankle from trying to dance like that Korean gentleman in that viral video. So there’s no telling where you are headed, but it’s somewhere good. I just know it. (Please take me with you. I am available for any and all coattail rides.)
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