Reflections: "Substitute feelings of insecurity with the excitement of skill acquisition"

Here’s the hard truth:

We all suck at some of the things we want to be good at.

If you’re like most people (and statistically speaking, you are), you’re not the best in the world—even at your chosen profession.

There might even be someone in close proximity to you who makes you feel insecure about your skill set.

Maybe it’s a co-worker, a family member or someone on Instagram, but chances are,

there’s someone who seems to do effortlessly what takes you a tremendous amount of effort just to get lesser results.

That bet is easy to make, because such is the nature of the human mind—it’s riddled with insecurities.

That’s why it’s essential to take the professional’s advice.

The book Mindset - introduced the world to the transformative power of the word yet.

You’re not good enough. Yet. 

People have an easy time believing that winning isn’t forever,

but somehow fail to recognize that loss and failure are equally temporary. 

The next time insecurity rears its ugly head, instead of being paralyzed by it, use that very feeling as the trigger to tack on the word yet.

That word will make all the difference in your life.

It takes things from the world of the perpetual and permanent to the world of temporary and transient.

People have an easy time believing that winning isn’t forever, but somehow fail to recognize that loss and failure are equally temporary.

Once you realize that you can get good at anything that you’re willing to put the time into, insecurity loses its power.

By remembering that you’re simply not good at something yet, you remember that you’re in control.

You can decide to get good whenever you want.

The key to making this work for you is in truly believing the intoxicating idea that you can acquire any skill you set your mind to.

Believing the opposite—that today’s version of yourself is the sum total of who you will ever be—confines you to insecurity.

Don’t focus on what you’re not good at today.

Focus on what you need to do to get good at mastering the skill you’re missing.

This moves your mind from the self-defeating loop of not being good enough, to the empowered mindset of the learner. 

How to start installing these new algorithms

Undoing innate, or even learned, brain patterns sadly isn’t as easy as downloading the latest driver for your computer,

but it actually is startlingly simple.

It’s a process called brain plasticity, and it’s how we learn new skills and habits.

it remains the backbone of learning a new skill and it happens largely through repetition—

neurons that fire together wire together, as they say.

If you’re to put any of the above to use in your life, the key is repetition.

Don’t be discouraged when you make some progress only to slide back.

Stick at it, and any new mental habit or skill can be yours.

Although you might never be able to silence the negative voices or counterproductive impulses,

with enough practice, their mere presence will act as a reminder to run your new algorithms.

Over time, you will find the time gap between unproductive thought and the running of your new,

upgraded algorithm will get so short that only you will know that your virtuous cycle started with something outdated.