The Art of Underestimation
TLDR
In this blog I delve into the how and why we often undervalue our abilities due to fears of failure, feelings of unworthiness, comfort zones and negative self-talk. I explore the reasons for this phenomenon, such as societal pressures and comparison with others. And I’ll introduce you to some ways you can combat it. We’ll look at strategies such as challenging negative self-talk, practising self-compassion, setting realistic goals, seeking positive experiences, improving skills and using the ‘fake it till you make it’ approach.
Don’t be too greedy
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you think the end result of the activity you’re about to embark on is more than what you deserve, even though you think you’re capable of completing the activity? It could be a promotion to a position you feel competent for, but the salary is much higher than you think you can get. Or a man you think would be a good match for you, but he’s too rich, too good-looking, too famous or whatever you think is too much for you to deserve.
You may catch yourself counteracting this feeling of unworthiness with thoughts like: I don’t need that much, or I’m not sure I’d really be happy if I had it all, or even, I don’t want to deal with what comes with all that success. Basically, you justify your feeling of unworthiness with the noble quality of not being too greedy. Yes, you shouldn’t be too greedy. But the problem is that you’re not being too greedy, you’re just turning down an opportunity that someone else is going to take advantage of. And you know what’s really funny? You won’t think they’re too greedy.
How it manifests
Self disdain can manifest itself in many different ways. We make it so surreptitiously and ingeniously, that it’s akin to an art form. Below are some of the ways we bring out this shortcoming.
The Impostor Syndrome
I’ve written about this before. One of the ways we sell ourselves short is by feeling that we’re only pretending to be competent. We’re afraid that at any moment someone will pull back the curtain and expose us as the frauds we think we are. But what if the only person who thinks you’re a fraud is yourself? That thought is worth considering because at least 99.9% of the time, that’s what happens. Unless you’re actually an impostor, but in that case you don’t think you’re a fraud, you know you’re a fraud.
An example that may resonate with you is that of a young woman who was promoted to a management position. Despite her qualifications and the fact that she deserves the promotion, she constantly feels that she’s faking her abilities and that her colleagues will discover that she isn’t as competent as they think. This is a classic example of impostor syndrome, where her self-doubt undermines her confidence and possibly her performance. This doesn’t just happen if you’ve recently been promoted or started a new job. It can also happen if you’ve been doing the same job for years. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.
Negative Self-Talk
This is different from impostorism. We’re often our own harshest critics. We say things to ourselves that we’d never say to anyone else, and we make demands on ourselves that we don’t expect anyone else to make. This can lead to negative self-talk, which is a major factor in selling ourselves short. Can you recognise yourself in the following example?
A man is trying to start his own business. Every time he suffers a setback, he says to himself something like “I’m not cut out for this” or “I’m a failure”. This negative self-talk keeps him from seeing the potential for growth and learning in these challenges. Not to mention the fact that if he believes he’s a failure, the likelihood of him failing increases exponentially. He’ll certainly give up before he reaches his goal and his self-fulfilling prophecy becomes reality.
A Fixed Mindset
This is when we believe that our abilities are set in stone. Either we’re good at something or we aren’t. This is, of course, utter nonsense and deep down we should know this. Whatever we’re good at, we have learnt and practised to become good at. If you haven’t learnt and practised whatever you can think of, you won’t be good at it. I’m not saying that if you learn and practise a skill long enough, you’ll become the best at it.
Some people are better suited for some tasks than others. But I can guarantee you that most of the people that master certain skills, are NOT the best suited for those skills, they’re just the ones that put their time and effort into perfecting those skills. There’s nothing we can’t do better and become good enough at if we just practise enough and persevere.
One student who struggles in maths thinks she’s “just not a maths person”. This fixed mindset lets her down and prevents her from realising that she can improve her maths skills with effort and practise. She’s likely to give up before she has really tried. Does this remind you of anyone?
Fear of Success
We have already briefly touched on this point. It may sound strange, but some of us are actually afraid of success. We’re scared of responsibility, expectations and change. Sometimes we think we aren’t worth all the success. But most of the time, the things we say we don’t want, like responsibility and change, and that we associate with success, are actually things we have to deal with regardless. The only difference is that we aren’t really happy because we aren’t focusing on what we consider to be success.
Let’s look at another example that you can easily extrapolate to your own situation. Imagine an artist who has the opportunity to exhibit his work in a prestigious gallery. However, he turns down the opportunity because he’s afraid of the greater visibility and expectations that come with success. His fear of success keeps him from realising his full potential. He puts more emphasis on something that isn’t real — his idea of what MIGHT happen, instead of focusing on what is real — the opportunity to exhibit his work in a prestigious gallery.
Why Do We Do It Though
The reasons we sell ourselves short are multifaceted, often rooted in psychological and environmental factors. Here’s some of the reasons for your consideration:
Psychological Factors
Low Self-Esteem: This is a common psychological factor that leads to self-underestimation. When people have a poor self-image, they tend to underestimate their abilities and potential. For example, a person with low self-esteem might not apply for a promotion because they believe they aren’t good enough, even if they’re highly qualified for the job. I’ve written about low self-confidence, which often goes hand in hand with low self-esteem. You can read that short article here.
Depression and Anxiety
These mental health conditions can have a significant impact on a person’s perception of their own worth and abilities. A person suffering from depression might feel hopeless about their future and therefore avoid risks and opportunities. Someone suffering from anxiety might be so afraid of failing that they limit their actions and potential.
I’m not qualified to give professional help, but I can tell you something you can do that will definitely help you. Meditate every day. Start with 2 minutes, or 5, or 10, however long you feel comfortable doing it. There are just a couple of rules for meditation: 1 — Focus on one thing during meditation. This can be a mantra, a body part, your breath, an image on an object, or on your mind. 2 — Other thoughts will keep popping up in your head. This is okay. As soon as you become aware that you have drifted to a thought other than the one you’re focusing on, accept it and gently let it go. Often these thoughts are something you need to do and completely forget about, or something old that you haven’t thought about for a long time. Whatever it’s, you accept it, agree to revisit it later if appropriate, and gently let it go so you can get back to what you’re focusing on. I like to meditate with my eyes closed and focus on my breath, concentrating on my nostrils as I breathe in and my lips as I breathe out.
Environmental Factors
Lack of Supportive Relationships
People who lack a supportive network often sell themselves short. Without encouragement and positive reinforcement, they may struggle to realise their own worth and potential. A young artist who has no support from friends or family may give up on their passion because they believe they’ll never succeed.
Cultural and Societal Expectations
Sometimes social norms and expectations can cause individuals to underestimate themselves. This can manifest itself in many different ways, some more obvious, some less obvious, so that it’s only noticeable to those who don’t conform to these expectations. From age or social background, to physical appearance and gender, to name the most obvious, or fashion style, communication ticks or general interests that are less obvious. You’d be amazed at the ways in which we can be discriminated against and how this reality can undermine our self-esteem.
Unrealistic Comparisons
It’s too easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others, especially on social media. Comparing ourselves to others’ highlight reel, can lead to feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to the reality of others, let alone the invented illusion of others. For example, a small business owner might feel like a failure if they compare their business to the established businesses they see online. In reality, what they see about their competitors is far from being the reality of their competitors, and in many cases these competitors are in an even more precarious situation than the small business owner.
Supermen
Don’t let the title of this section fool you. These problems aren’t specific to men or women, and neither is better equipped to deal with them than the other. Well, actually, men tend to be less agreeable than women, which can significantly impact their ability to fight for themselves — figuratively speaking. But that doesn’t mean that men don’t suffer from these problems too, or that women can’t overcome them easily.
Recognize and Challenge Negative Self-Talk
Recognising your negative self-talk is the first and arguably the most important step you can take. If you aren’t aware that your self-talk is negative, you have no motivation to change it, and that means that you believe in it so much that you don’t even realise that it’s negative. It’s just “reality”, it’s what it’s, you think.
We sell ourselves short because we either believe or give too much credence to the negative voice in our head. It’s important that you recognise when this is the case and fight these thoughts promptly. For example, if you find yourself thinking, ‘I can’t give this presentation, I’m not a good public speaker,’ remember situations where you have successfully spoken in front of others. If you have never done this before, imagine yourself doing it successfully. Think of the positive sides, of what speaks for you. Your knowledge, your experience, whatever that will help you to be successful in this task or activity.
Practice Self-Compassion
Be gentle with yourself when you make mistakes or suffer setbacks. Instead of berating yourself, remember that everyone makes mistakes and experiences failures. This is part of the human experience. At least love yourself so that you can truly love someone else or something else.
You didn’t do as well as you hoped at a job interview. Instead of labelling yourself as a failure, remember that everyone has bad interviews and that this one experience doesn’t determine your worth or ability. Try to focus on what you can learn from this experience. Is there anything I could have done differently? Is there something I should learn more about? Focus on what you can do better next time and be grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow.
Set Realistic Goals
Setting unattainable goals can lead to feelings of inadequacy and self-underestimation. Don’t get me wrong, you should have challenging and inspiring goals that aren’t easy and quick to achieve. But you need to set them in such a way that they’re realistic and don’t overwhelm you. How can you do that? Break down your goals into sub-goals. Then divide these sub-goals into further sub-goals. Repeat them if necessary. When you have simple, realistic goals, write down the tasks needed to achieve these simpler goals.
For example, you want to run a marathon. The problem is that you’re in your thirties and haven’t run since high school. This goal is overwhelming and not realistic. So let’s break the goal down into sub-goals. Main goal: run 42 km. Subgoal: run 35 km. Sub-goal: 25 km. You can see where I’m going with this. It ends with a goal similar to: walk 10 km or 5 km.
The final plan would look something like this (abbreviated): Walk 5 km twice a week for 2 weeks. Walk 5 km twice a week with 3 runs of 2m within the walk. Slowly add to the goals and fast forward a few months: Walk 25 km with up to 10 runs of 10m within the walk. Fast forward a few months: Run for 1 hour at a stretch and at a comfortable pace. Repeat until you can run a marathon
There are a few important things to remember. Your first goal is no longer to run a marathon, but to walk 5 or 10 km twice a week. The real beauty isn’t the day you run the marathon; although that’s certainly a special day you’ll treasure forever; it’s all the days you walked and ran and the improvements you can easily see in your performance. Not to mention the health benefits in this particular example. So turn your big goals into smaller, more achievable goals. Make them so small and simple that there’s no way you won’t do them successfully.
Let me give you an extreme example of the marathon running scenario. Your initial goal is to lace up your running shoes every Tuesday and Thursday at 5pm and go for a walk for 5 minutes. Start there and gradually increase. This may not work if your goals have fixed timelines. So if your goal was to run a marathon in a month, this strategy wouldn’t work. But the strategy of breaking your goals down into sub-goals is still the most effective way to achieve your goals. You just have to make sure that your goals are realistic. In the example above, running a marathon is realistic, but running a marathon in a short period of time may not be.
Seek Out Positive Experiences and Influences
Surround yourself with positive people who encourage and support you. Look for experiences that make you feel good about yourself and your abilities. This could be a project you’re passionate about at work or a new hobby.
Also, don’t be afraid to remove negative experiences and influences from your life. Some activities and people have a negative impact on your life and you should be brave enough to remove them.
When it comes to activities, just make sure that you’re able to distinguish challenging activities where you aren’t yet performing as well as you’d like and therefore may not be enjoying them as much as you’d like, from activities that are detrimental to your life.
When it comes to people, you need to be gentle and diplomatic, but make sure they get the message. Stop seeing them. Stop saying yes to invitations.
Practise, Practise, Practise
Competence does wonders for self-confidence. The more you do something, the better you become at it and the more confident you feel. Don’t shy away from opportunities to practise your skills and abilities.
Two things that should motivate you to keep practising: firstly, and in my opinion the most important thing, your intention. The reason why you want to be good at what you’re practising. Make sure your intention is meaningful to you. Second is the visible improvements that you see. Depending on what you’re practising, the latter may take a while. With some skills you can see improvements immediately, with others it takes a long time to see the fruits of your practice.
The reason I say “practise, practise, practise” is that practise requires perseverance in order to be effective.
Fake It Till You Make It
Don’t be afraid and don’t be ashamed to fake it until you make it. Sometimes you just have to appear confident, even if you don’t feel confident. If you appear confident, you’ll feel more confident over time. And if you appear confident, people will respond to you and treat you as a confident person, which in turn will boost your confidence. Think about it: If life is a play and we’re all actors in it, then we’re all just faking it.
Conclusion
If you’re reading this in the future; my future obviously, you can’t read in your future; and I’ve somehow made it, understand that as I write this, I haven’t made it yet. I’ll be lucky if there’s anyone else reading this whole article besides me. Well, they’re probably the lucky ones. So, am I faking it? And did I pull it off well? Tell me in the comments below.
