13 signs you're more capable than you think you are
#4: You understand that weaknesses and fears are temporary states rather than objective facts.
You’ve done at least one thing in life that scared the living daylights out of you. You’ve spoken in front of a crowd even though you’d rather be swallowed up whole. You’ve bought a one way ticket to a new country. You’ve been on a first date. Entered a competition. Dipped your toe into something new. Quit a toxic job in pursuit of peace. Quit a dream job in pursuit of purpose.
Your insecurities no longer roam around looking for someone else to blame. When you carelessly hurt someone you love, you apologise. You forgive those who carelessly hurt you. You build bridges. Make truces. You breathe a sigh of acceptance and move on.
You understand that your perspective is not the perspective. Two opposing opinions can coexist, two competing narratives can be accurate. Your need to be right doesn’t outweigh your desire to get to the truth, and this means you can see things for how they really are.
You understand that weaknesses and fears are temporary states rather than objective facts.
You interrogate your motivations and question your assumptions; the ones that society, culture, family, friends, the podcasts you listen to, the TV shows you binge on Netflix and Tiktok’s algorithmic death spiral would have you believe are true. You second guess yourself, and while some may see this as a sign of ineptitude, you know that this willingness to be wrong is what keeps you ahead.
Piercing barbs, passive aggressive jabs and the insufferable tirades of world leaders don’t violently trigger you the same way they used to. You’ve learned to distance yourself from other people’s turmoil, and tame your emotional whiplash so that it no longer controls your life.
Who you are today is not who you were a year ago. Or a month ago. Or yesterday. Daily progress appears in the smallest corners of your life in all ways, always.
The only person who can change your life is you. You take responsibility for it all: the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the hard, the soft, the hatred, the love, the despair, the hope, the catastrophic losses and the euphoric wins that make you feel as if you’re walking on air.
Life tempts you with the unsolicited, the unwelcome, the forbidden, the get-rich-quick schemes, the no-one-will-knows and the just-this-one-times. But whenever life serves up its forbidden fruit, you refuse to take a bite.
Having a clear end point in sight is not a prerequisite to start moving in a different direction. You’ve stared in the face of uncertainty and the promise of failure, and you’ve done it anyway.
Someone important has trusted you with something important. You’ve been asked to keep a secret, make a decision, cradle an emotion, hold onto information, take care of a person or see through a piece of work, and you followed through.
When everything looks dull and bleak, you have the wherewithal to pull back a curtain and let the sunlight in.
You’re a human being on planet earth with billions of years of intelligence coursing through every cell in your system and fibre of your being. There’s a reason galaxies look near-identical to neural networks in a labyrinthine brain, why blood vessels coursing through the human body mirror river deltas as they reach the sea. That same generative, expansive force runs through you too.
The world is made up of two kinds of people.
The ones who know they’re capable of great things, and the ones who just don’t realise it yet.
My personal strategy for reminding myself that I’m capable, in moments of fear, self-doubt, uncertainty, existential crisis…etc. I highly suggest you try it!
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woah. this reminds me of two things:
1. reading somewhere that “You are the creative expression of the universe at a single moment in time” - i’ll never forget that 🪐
2. an albert einstein quote: “there are two ways to live. one is as though nothing is a miracle. the other is as though everything is.” 🪄
i want to print this whole post and stick it on my walls!!! maybe i will.
Thanks for this reminder Anna! I think overall I've a positive and can-do kind of person, but we all have our moments of blaaaah and being extra hard on ourselves. I'm interviewing for a new opportunity today and this is the pep up I needed.