Overcoming fundamental doubts about our capabilities

🎬 BROADEN THE STORY: Taking into account a holistic definition of your abilities & their respective impact on others

How often do you update the story you tell about your own abilities?

This change happens to me every couple of years, and it’s always illuminating.

It suddenly occurs to me that the language I’ve been using to describe certain aspects of my personality are limiting. And in most cases, there is a better way to think about my talents.

There is a new story that’s more life giving for me, and more value added for others.

The most recent update relates to the idea of being analytical. There’s a word you see on most job descriptions.

Our firm is looking for highly analytical problem solvers. Must be able to analyze complex plans and identify inefficiencies. Candidate must be capable of using marketing analytics techniques to garner insights.

Now, a younger version of me would have been turned off by such descriptions. Stubborn in my right brain ways, I would proclaim that analytical is not how my brain works.

I’m a creative visionary, damnit, not a number cruncher. Go hire someone else.

But what recently occurred to me is, there is more to being analytical than just numbers. Did you know that the word itself means to dissect or take to pieces? To analyze is to examine critically and get the essence of something.

Wow, come to think of it, that’s something that brings me joy and creates real value for others and the organizations in which they work. Analyzing is awesome. Not from a data perspective, necessarily, since spreadsheets give me hives.

But analyzing feelings, thoughts, information, ideas, systems, opportunities, processes and people, sign me up. If somebody wants to dump a bunch of content into my lap and give me a week to digest, organize, extract patterns, and then convert that material into something useful, that sounds good to me.

Ultimately, this new, broader story, one that takes into account a more holistic definition of my abilities and their respective impact on those around me, is deeply empowering.

Because instead of beating myself up about the weaknesses of my insufferable artist personality, instead of brooding about how useless the left side of my brain is, I can embrace a part of myself that perhaps I never gave due credit to.

As my wife will lovingly remind me, you may not be as great as you want to be, but you're also not as bad as you think you are.

Next time you try to box your talents in with a story that no longer serves you, extend some additional kindness to yourself.

You might find a way to access capabilities you didn’t give yourself permission to have. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Which of your identity narratives are too convenient to be killed?