Chances are each one of us is good at at least something, maybe you are good at sports, art, financials, baking or talking. But there are apx 7 Billion people on this planet. And its almost guaranteed that there are many people that are better at what you think you are pretty good at. My dad used to say there is always someone better than you, always someone who knows more than you and
always someone who will go further than you and it turns out he was absolutely right. At the time I used to take it as an insult, how could he say to his only son that there is always someone better than me?
Growing older me and my dad never got on well until I reached a point where I just had to live my own life. So at the young age of 15 I decided it was time to move out. I grabbed all my stuff, rented an old house in a village outside of town with an outdoor bathroom and started living my life. Somehow it always bugged me that there was someone better than me, so I started to compete with that “someone” who in reality I had never even met.
It never even occurred to me how hard I had been working on getting better at everything I could get my hands on. Each time I saw something I found impressive, I felt an inner force pushing me to be better than what I saw. It also resulted in me having a ton of hobbies, anything from Drawing, Singing, Playing the Guitar even writing code for applications or building websites. If I found it impressive I had to achieve it and be better at it than anyone I knew.
Fast forward to 2017 and every Child is special. Average has become the new word for Failure. We protect our children so much from negative feelings that they don’t actually build a drive to improve. Why should they, everyone tells them already that they are so “special”. Why should they improve ? Now I am not saying you should actively make your child feel like they are a failure that would be the other extreme. But you should be honest with them, if they are good at something sure tell them but also tell them where they should improve and what they are not doing well.
Accepting that you are not special will give you space to improve and will allow you to stay humble as you grow.
