Practice to Rate Yourself
I generally don’t like to drag my fashion sense on the scale of any conventional meter. It changes frequently. But my metro appearances are quite stodgy and repetitive. One tote bag on my lap, a high ponytail, AirPods, and a phone in my hand— more or less, it’s like this. That day also had these very common things. I was scrolling down to Slow Growth’s newsletter. A lofi tune jibed well with my reading. Suddenly, I saw everyone in the opposite row leaning and looking at the right door. I looked at my row, and they too had eyes on the same door. Some gathered there. I paused the music.
A girl shouted out, “I’m not going… I don’t wanna…Please!” She kept on ranting. The train stopped. Her mother and her friends dragged her out of the metro. One held her big backpack, one her sweater sleeve, and her mother grabbed her arm. Her one friend tried to cheer her up, “Hey…this one last class test and we’re done…don’t make this crying face!” The metro left them quarreling at the station. The girls were around six or seven. One old lady clenched, “Poor child."
One simple statement about the situation, “She was not ready for the class test.” That test was so hard for the child that she tried to avoid it in every possible way. She cried, she resisted. She made her avoidance quite vocal in front of hundreds. She made the situation even worse when she cried inconsolably while looking at the passing train. Now imagine any of us in that situation. What else could we do? We perhaps hide everything in any outer space, in any black hole; I mean, we wouldn’t linger over a metro door but we would do all those similar tantrums in our minds. And if we sum up the reason, one statement would be, “I’m not prepared for the next hard situation.” That has three main reasons: one: you didn’t know anything about the possible hard situation and it shocked you; second: you might know but you didn’t understand the gravity of the situation; or third: you knew everything but you didn't want competitiveness and eventually you stepped into that situation with a sulking and under-confident attitude. And here comes one more trait that is the self-defeating phase.
“Jump from the frying pan onto the counter, not into the fire. In your haste to change a self-defeating behavior, make sure you don't just substitute a different self-defeating behavior…Instead of waiting until a similar situation arises and acting impulsively, figure out in advance what course of action would provide a lasting solution, not just a temporary substitution.” Authors Mark Goulston and Philip Goldberg decoded our most undeniable tendencies.
We slug around preparations. We get procrastination phases, or we fail to manage time, or we fear the societal structure of competitiveness. And we banter with our own credibility. There are ways to stop this.
Firstly, when you’re getting into difficulty all of a sudden, then try to compare new hardships with past hardships and finally, try to recall some of your own smart moves and use that trick in the new hard situation.
Secondly, we all need to build a shield of self-confidence around us. Confidence never stands on a higher scale when self-defeating mode peeks in. But it can. It needs time. It just asks for your attention and practice. Then it will not move down drastically. It never comes like a protagonist; we need to brush up on this skill.
Finally, we need to move beyond so-called competitiveness. What value we can add to us and to our surroundings, and how we define our hardships and successes—these things are evaluated each day. But how you define or rate yourself makes a huge difference to your overall parameter of happiness. If I show you a scale from self-defeating to self-congratulating, then where will you put yourself?
Wherever you’re at, the next number waits to see your growth. Wait, practice, see your growth and rate yourself. Each number goes on in one direction—upwards. It shows only growing confidence. That defines your place as a warrior of life. I call this scale Ina*. Where you stand now and when you move forward, every bit is you. You decide your growth.
(*In Sanskrit, Ina (इन).—a. means determined or anything that is powerful.)