Are You Really as Good As You Think You Are?

There's a difference between Healthy Self Esteem and Misleading Self Delusion.

How objective are you really being about yourself?

When you scrape away the Pomp and Circumstance, what's left?

Or are you one of those that.....

Don't Know What They Don't Know.

How do you know where you stand in the grand scheme of things?

Well.... like everything else, you have to narrow it down to something a little more specific.

Are you talking about your looks, your body, your bank account, your annual salary, your parental skills and effectiveness, how many friends you have on Facebook, your success in personal relationships, your IQ?

First - Pick a feature, skill, characteristic or attribute.

Second - Think about the People you've met, the Experiences you've had and the Results that you've obtained vs What Others have obtained. 

Note: You have to compare yourself against a Like Population..... The Biggest Source of Self Delusion is being a Big Fish in a Little Pond.... which leads us to point 3.

Third - It is impossible to effectively assess your abilities in almost any endeavour without getting outside of your "Circle of Influence".  That means you have to get away from where you live, where you normally are and the people you are normally around and get into a different place and environment and spend time in that new world of elites and then see how you stack up.  That's why there are athletic competitions and vocational conferences..... the creme de la creme get together and learn and challenge themselves and their competition and evaluate and grow and assess.

Fourth - No Matter How Good You Think You Are, you have to realize several things:

• Somebody Somewhere is better than you..... at Anything and Everything.
• You can always be better.
• You can't be the Best at Everything.  There is only so much time in the day and so much energy you can expend on any given day.  Be Selective in Your Effort based on Your Priorities of Happiness.  (See Prior Post - "Are You Happy")
• Try to have a Working Knowledge of Many Things.  If you're leaving important decisions that have long lasting effects on your life to someone else (an "Expert"), you are abdicating Control of the Result to them.... that is simply Lazy and Wrong!
• A little Humility never hurt anybody.
• If you think you "Own the Room", it's probably a pretty small room.

Fifth - The Ultimate Goal is to be the Best You Can Be.

So Work on What You Have Control Over.... and let the rest go.