If You Really Believe In Yourself, You’ll Tell Everyone About It
But it may take longer than you expect and that’s okay.
Believing in yourself sounds easy. It’s you! What’s not to believe in? But it’s actually a lot of hard work that involves dismantling lies we think are truths and learning to accept compliments! If you’ve ever said, “I could never do that!” or “It’s too late for me now.” you’re not alone. At Embrace Change, we prioritize strengthening your self-confidence.
Today, we have a guest blog post from Embrace Change team member, Jus Tri. This one goes out to all the women of color and nonbinary people of color who are scared to keep trying but, somehow, still want to.
Blog post by Embrace Change team member, Jus Tri, virtual assistant and writer of Jus Tri Help.
I was supposed to be a teacher; it’s what I studied in college, so I expected that after I graduated I’d get a job as a teacher. Only I didn’t. In the ten years between today and graduation, I did everything I could to get a full-time teaching job, from volunteering to tutoring to substitute teaching, but I still didn’t get it. While I’d love to tell you everything that happened in those ten years, the most important lesson I learned is that believing in yourself is really hard if you don’t expect others to believe in you, too.
Being able to tell everyone how great you are, takes a lot of gratitude, grace, and grit.
Gratitude
Once I’d gotten to the point that I didn’t need to be a teacher with my own classroom, I decided I could pursue another career. Still, I doubted I could convince hiring managers to hire me, a teacher with limited in-classroom experience, in human resources or the editorial department. It also didn’t help that everyone I knew insisted I’d be a great teacher. I wish I could’ve taken them with me to an interview or attached the screenshots of compliments I received to an email. They could say, “Hire her as a teacher! You won’t regret it!” or “Yes, she did study to be a teacher but she’d make a great office administrator!”
Like many of my peers, I wondered how I’d get the years of required experience without being given the opportunity to get the required experience.
How often would I have to change the verbs in my resume for the hiring software to pick it up?? What was the professional way of saying, “I have not used my classroom management skills in a classroom of middle schoolers full-time but they came in really handy on a supermarket sales floor when a customer yelled at me because a particular brand of cereal was mispriced and sometimes customers are like kindergartners”?
I hated hearing, “It was a tough decision because you were all qualified candidates but we decided to go in another direction.” I would have rather been rejected outright. I would rather have been told I wasn’t qualified at all than that I had one or two qualities shy of getting the job.
All I wanted was the chance to prove myself and when I couldn’t, I coped with it by telling myself, “I know how great I am. It’s okay if they don’t. I am amazing and for that, at least, I’m grateful.”
Grace
Telling everyone how great you are can come across two ways–one, as arrogance or two, as a lie, and I was afraid I’d be perceived as both. I was taught my work is supposed to speak for itself (though I’ve since learned better) and maybe I watched too many Disney Channel movies as a kid, but I wanted destiny to play a far greater role because I was tired of putting in more work than anyone else. Other people’s mistakes were bypassed whereas mine were scrutinized and corrected. I couldn’t even win with nepotism on my side when my parents tried to get me a job at the hospital where they worked.
It was hard waking up every morning knowing I’d have to research and try another new method.
How many ways could a person really describe themselves without having to write a memoir? But I kept at it.
I tried everything and accepted every interview that was offered to me, which meant I learned how to detect scams in interview listings and could therefore warn others of them. I realized I could turn down work that I knew would drain my energy, and found strength in that.
I do still sometimes wonder if I had taken another job over the one I did and I learned that it was okay to wonder. It was okay to imagine ‘what if’ and get caught up in it for a couple hours because accepting that I had emotions was just as important as having them.
The comfort I had in celebrating my wins with my friends and family, I had to find its equal in the bravery and vulnerability of asking for support. You see, I never thought my friends or family were bragging when they rejoiced over a promotion or a new house or vacation. I never thought my friends and family were whiny when they mourned over unemployment or burst pipes or delayed flights. I always understood, but now I had to extend that understanding–that grace–to myself.
With every new interview, I confidently (bit by bit) told potential employers, “Yes, I do know how to do that. This is how I’ve done it, but I’m also happy to learn a new way because I want to keep learning just as I have over the last few years.” #GrowthMindset
Grit
The thing about gratitude is that people think it’s only about being thankful for what you receive and we don’t always receive the things we want, let alone need. The thing about grace is that the whole point of it is for those who don’t deserve it, otherwise, it wouldn’t be grace.
It’s hard to know what to be grateful for when every day we wake up to news, like finding out you can’t log into your work account anymore…
During times like that, gratitude and grace can feel like a slap in the face, but that’s where grit comes into play. (I was going to use ‘perseverance’ but I was really committing to the alliteration 🤪) I underestimated the energy it takes to practice gratitude and grace. They’re like the vegetables of moods and I much prefer popcorn. But still, gratitude and grace, like vegetables, have to be prepared the right way–which takes effort!–and then they’re absolutely delicious.
Grit is about persevering through the complaints and worries we justifiably have and wanting to get past them.
Grit is choosing to take a nap instead of working unpaid overtime.
Grit is drafting an angry text message in your notes app and sleeping on it until the next day.
Grit is having patience in the face of stubbornness.
Grit is practicing gratitude when someone compliments me.
Grit is extending grace to myself when I get passed over for a promotion.
Believing In Myself
You’ll remember: I was supposed to be a teacher; it’s what I studied in college, so I expected that after I graduated I’d get a job as a teacher. Only I didn’t and by not getting the thing I really wanted (or rather, the thing I was settling for), I had to search for what I really wanted.
Letting go of expectations revealed that I was really hanging on too tight to what I was ‘supposed to do’.
Being a teacher with my own classroom wouldn’t have been any more ‘secure’ than working as I do now as a virtual assistant. Working all the random jobs revealed to me sooner that no one else’s life is linear. We’re all insecure, and we will take every personality test available (here’s Embrace Change’s leadership styles quiz if you’re interested!).
Believing in myself had been difficult because I believed I was meant to do one thing and pinned all my value and hope onto that. The moment (and there were several) I believed I could do anything so long as I tried and could face anything that came my way, my value became intrinsic, that is to say, I accepted external validation without depending on it. I trusted when people complimented me instead of being worried I was deceiving them. I wasn’t ashamed to share my story. I was happy to share all my mistakes and was always pleasantly surprised when someone resonated with my story.
And now I’m able to keep telling everyone how great I am–how much I believed in myself–because I’ve seen how it encourages them to do the same: to believe in themselves.
Icing on the cake.