Knowing Who You Are and Believing In Yourself

Ever since I was a little kid, I've always been confident in myself. I know who I am, what I can do, and what I'm capable of doing.

The older I get, the more I see adults who don't know who they are, what they stand for, or what they want.

Early in my teenage years, I asked a group of guys to let me play volleyball with them. They laughed at me. I used that rejection as motivation to teach myself volleyball and to become a good player so that one day they would ask to be on my team. I knew it would take time, and I immersed myself in the sport, soaking up as much as I could and breathing it in as if it was air. Years later, my hard work and devotion to learning and improving my volleyball skills helped catapult me to a much higher level. Those same guys who had laughed at me years before would ask to play on my team.

In my 20's I really wanted to learn how to ride a sport motorcycle, or sport bike, as the term is used here in the United States. I finally bought a used "crotch rocket" (a sport bike with a sitting position that requires you to hunch over and lean forward while cradling the gas tank with your thighs; it's definitely uncomfortable and hot in the summer to ride in this manner) and took a class to learn how to ride. People laughed at me and said I looked silly on my motorcycle. I didn't care. Why? Because having and riding a motorcycle was not about them. It was about me and satisfying my own desire to ride a sport bike.

In my 30's I wanted to take a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) class. Some people thought it was funny that I'd want to learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In their minds, they couldn't imagine me doing BJJ. I convinced my wife to join me, and we fell in love with the sport. At the very beginning, my wife really didn't want to join. She only came because I begged her to go with me. But once she saw how amazing and helpful learning BJJ was, she was hooked. Although we were the two smallest people in the class, our instructor and the other students were extremely supportive. In several of our classes, I had to spar with a guy literally twice my size. He was on top of me, and my job was to get out from under him in whatever way I could. As you can imagine, it's quite difficult to do this with someone who is a foot taller and outweighs you by 140 lbs. But as challenging as it was, it's also incredible what you can do to outmaneuver someone when you know what you're doing. My training partner was kind and helpful and was never trying to hurt me, and having him and my instructor supporting me in that way was a tremendous help.

In my mid-30's, when I worked on an island in the North Pacific Ocean, I told my boss and colleagues that I wanted to start a Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Training Program for the teachers and school staff across the 20 schools on 3 islands, to educate and train teachers, administrators, and school staff on how to best manage anxious, hostile, and/or violent crisis situations in their classrooms and on their campuses. Many of my colleagues laughed in my face and said it would never work. I managed to recruit one colleague who was initially skeptical, secured two grants, and got permission from the very top school administrator to launch the program. As a result of the Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Workshops, along with trainings and presentations on classroom management and anti-bullying, over 800 educators, counselors, and administrators were trained on best-practice models for managing crisis and potentially volatile situations. The results were clear. The program helped the schools, teachers, administrators, and staff become more capable and confident in dealing with and managing violent incidents in their classrooms and on their campuses.

Takeaway: 

There will always be naysayers, doubters, and negative people who aren't cheering for you or rooting for you to succeed. People will reject you or tell you that what you're trying to do is stupid or silly or will never work. Don't listen to them. If you feel strongly about doing something, you'll regret it if you don't answer that inner voice telling you to go for it. If you BELIEVE you can do it, you CAN DO IT! If I had sat around waiting for validation, approval, or permission, I would still be waiting 20, 30, or 40 years later.

There will also be people who want to mold you into what they think you should be, how you should behave, or how you should present yourself. They'll project their own feelings of insecurity onto you. They'll see your mistakes and failures as a reflection of their own, no matter how untrue that is, and will do what they can to "fix" you. These people have appointed themselves the arbiter of what good or perfect looks like for you. After all, they're doing you a favor by highlighting your deficiencies and coming up with various strategies to correct them.

Here's the crazy part: no matter how much you contort yourself to fit into their mold of you, it will never be enough. You will never be smart enough, stand tall enough, speak well enough, or do something "enough" in their eyes. Do not let people like this into your life, and if they're already in your life, don't let them dictate how you live your life, whether it's personal or professional.

Some people will never be for you, and you will never be enough in their eyes. No amount of education, success, or accolades will be enough, because there will always be something else about you that they want you to "fix." YOU have to be your own BIGGEST CHEERLEADER. Believe in and root for yourself, even and especially when no one else does. The best way to get back at your critics is to simply live your best life.

Written By: Steve Nguyen, Ph.D.

Organizational & Leadership Development Leader