23 - Only I Can Make Myself Feel Inadequate

50 Years, 50 Lessons

Lesson 23: Only I Can Make Myself Feel Inadequate

My work life has taught me very well that things are RARELY what they seem.

As an occupational therapist, I was in the privileged position to have clients show me behind their curtains. Literally (the house curtains) and figuratively (their lives).

Both lenses surprise you. The curtains of homes tell stories. The things they want to keep out or hidden, but also the things they want to keep in.

The curtain of life, though, is far more complicated. Layers and layers of all sorts of things.

Then, as a business coach, I realized that businesses are the same. The optics of success or failure are fascinating. You really can’t know which is which without being given a key to the castle. I am grateful that people trust me with such information.

The reality is that behind every curtain lives information you just don’t have unless someone shows you. Like, really SHOWS you.

So why do we look at people and their lives and feel less than about ours? How can the lives of others make us feel inadequate?

Why do we assume that the images we see are accurate? Because my career tells me they aren’t.

Nice houses can tell a story about success in career or life, or in: debt, inheritance, luck, even deceit and fraud. We just don’t know which story is true.

Happy people might BE happy, or might be ACTING happy. Or both.

Same with businesses. LOOKING successful and BEING successful are different things.

What I have realized is that the people who are truly rich or wealthy or happy or successful don’t talk about it. The people who aren’t, talk about it all the time. Some of the most successful people we think we know have built a foundation on a house of cards. One big customer. Some big debt. Burning bridges behind them.

I decided long ago that things are not what they seem. So, I have made the conscious choice to stop comparing myself to others and to stop wanting what others have. Because I have no knowledge of how they have what they have, how they feel in the lives they are living, and how sustainable or responsible any of it is.

My new superpower is not letting the images I am flooded with make me feel inadequate. My life is not less than. It just IS. And it is the life I have created. I own that.

Your turn:

How do you manage your own feelings of insecurity or inadequacy? Do tell.

To All: Thank you for being on this journey with me – past, present, and future.

Julie