The state of "I can" or power - how to stop depreciating your achievements

Translated with the help of AI. We apologize for any errors and would appreciate your help in correcting them.

Today's article will be devoted to the analysis of the state of power, which, when "on mode", will help you to achieve new heights more easily, as well as to feel better in life in psychological terms. Before disassembling the "I can" state, it is necessary to understand the reverse state: "I cannot" or "I am not sure that I can", as well as "I do not know whether I can or not".  This reverse state is now commonly referred to as “Impostor Syndrome.”

1. Impostor syndrome

Impostor syndrome is a psychological state in which a person does not know how to recognize his own achievements, does not consider his personal abilities and efforts to be merit. Usually, people who are affected by this syndrome do not consider their successes the result of their efforts, but attribute them to circumstances (luck, favor of life) or other people.

Impostor syndrome is very common in the modern world, and when working with clients, I almost every second person sees its manifestations. This is primarily due to upbringing, since often people from the Soviet and post-Soviet space grew up in a paradigm of ignoring their individual achievements in childhood. At the same time, parents could either ask the child to be less noticeable or exert pressure if the child behaved differently from other children. 

You can try to track similar situations in your childhood:

1. Perhaps if you brought home from school a diary with a "4", you were asked: "Why not 5?"
2. Or they were compared to a neighbor boy, who, according to his parents, was generally better than you in everything.
3. Or, when you did something better than others, you were told, “So what?”

Unfortunately, most people regularly face the fact that they often discreetly devalue their successes, and for some it is part of the usual model of life.

2. Mechanism of depreciation

Depreciation is a psychological protection in which a person underestimates his own achievements, as well as those of others and their actions. This is a way for our psyche to protect itself from dangerous external influences. Depreciation can manifest itself in various forms, for example, as sarcasm or ostentatious indifference.

Options for the depreciation mechanism:

1. I'm afraid of failure, so I can pretend that success is completely unimportant to me.
2. I am afraid to seem worse than the other in something, so I can underestimate his merits, and then the level of my fear will decrease.
3. I did something meaningful, but I'm scared to admit it to myself and others.

Such a depreciation always leads to one result: the inconsistency of reality with one's own ideas about oneself and one's capabilities, disbelief in one's abilities and ignoring life's challenges. Therefore, it is important to know how to turn off the depreciation mechanism and turn on the "I can" state, because any person has all the mental reserves to do this.

To regain your power, switch the “failure mindset” by constantly generating ideas in your brain about:

It is clear that you will need time, perseverance and discipline to restructure your thinking! But the main thing is that you should like it. Praise yourself where you really deserve it - not bragging, not overestimating your abilities or narcissism, but recognizing the real state of affairs! To consolidate this thinking, I will give you 2 cool techniques and some tips on how to use them.

I, You, We Technique

So, find your virtues and write them down on behalf of "I".

• For example: "I am good, as I am constantly improving and growing in poker." It is important that these are examples from different areas of your life, cover the immense!

Then write on behalf of others: "You (Name) - well done, because you are constantly training and growing." And so - for each statement from the "I" list. And then imagine that you are praised by some majority of people on behalf of "We": "We believe that you (Name) - well done (there can be any word, I give only an example) because we see that you are constantly improving and growing, no matter what."

Permissions Technique

The essence of this technique is to allow yourself to grow internally, make mistakes, perform any actions (and not focus only on the norms of society) and generally be yourself. I am sure that 80% of people live adjusting to others, and sometimes they do not even feel their real self, its feelings and emotions, which I often work with during consultations. Therefore, it is important to awaken this inner self . Give yourself a list of permissions. You can recall situations of bans from childhood.

• For example: "do not eat immediately a pot of ice cream", "do not eat sweets before eating" and so on. These can be any (even seemingly correct) prohibitions, at this stage it is important for you to learn how to allow something to itself.
• For example: "I allow myself to eat as much ice cream as I want and when I want." Most likely, you will not want to eat an ice cream bowl at once, but it is important that you will not have any restrictions on this issue in your head!

And so with everything:

1. "Allow myself to grow slowly" (if there is an eternal race for a quick result inside).
2. "Allow me to admire myself" (if you rarely do this).
3. "I allow myself to be mistaken"! Remember that any mistakes are our experience, which allows us to draw conclusions for the future. Learn from the error and move on.

3. Next steps

After you have done these exercises, try to analyze your condition. How do you feel internally now? How do you look like? Maybe your shoulders straightened, your head went up? Remember in detail all the sensations of your power! It is only yours - and dare, go, move forward with it. If there are difficulties when performing the techniques or there is a feeling that you lacked something - this is normal! Do not chase an instant result, perhaps its time has not yet come.

Allow yourself at least here not to try to feel everything at once. Use the tips that I will give below, they will help you understand what else you can work with.

1. Ask for help from loved ones, let them point out your merits. If you feel uncomfortable discussing this topic in person, ask them to write to you about it. Perhaps you need to work with your base - self-assessment. 

I wrote about it in the article: "Stable self-esteem is the basis of human psychology."

1. Try to practice what you can do. In the process, remember your emotions, feelings, and state. In this way, you will train your brain to ground itself on what comes out.
2. Allow yourself to "be different", to be different from the people around you. To differ from those who, according to your feeling, succeed, because you cannot know exactly their path and the difficulties that they overcome.

Well, if you want to bring your "state of power" closer and understand what you need to work on, come to me for advice.