Reassess your level of awesomeness

From  http://explodingdog.com/title/awesome2.html

The phrase 'reassess your level of awesomeness' popped up in a blog, article or comment somewhere in the last week and it's kind of stuck in my head.

I've always been ridiculously confident in my level of awesomeness in areas where I've chosen to engage. I do/ did have a trend of  not getting involved in something unless I thought I could easily succeed. My favourite ever school report comment was for Physical Education. It went something like "Eleanorjane needs to learn that cynicism is no substitute for effort". Teachers can't get away with writing stuff like that these days and the world is a poorer place for it!

I have (very sadly and slowly) realised that I'm probably never going to turn heads with my looks again. I was never a 10 in terms of looks, but I did enjoy dressing up and feeling pretty in my teens and 20s. I can still dress up, but I'll never be as pretty as I was...

Anyway, I've had a few experiences lately that I have caused me to reassess my level of awesomeness in a couple of other areas.

Firstly, singing. There's a local group that meets every couple of weeks to jam. We get a set list and I do a bit of practise to make sure that I have some idea of how the songs go. I was excited about last week because one of the songs was 'Rolling in the Deep' by Adele. I had a bit of a practise and even recorded myself to make sure I didn't sound too 'classical'. I thought I had it sorted. On the day though, I got flustered, started off wrong and it was just horrible. Something that should be been a showpiece was so painful that everyone quickly decided that the song was off the set-list for good. I did fine on the other songs, but this really knocked my confidence.

Next, work. We had a big meeting. I was there as one of a panel with a few other folks. When speaking to the whole group, I was interrupted and my comments clearly didn't go down well. In contrast, an amazing senior woman had them sitting in the palm of her hand. I was in awe of how diplomatically she phrased things, how she made small concessions seem like big concessions and managed the whole thing. I wasn't the only one who was impressed as the room went quiet whenever she opened her mouth. I know it's not fair to compare myself to someone with 20 years more experience than me, but still...

So, I'm a bit down tonight. Maybe this dose of humility will be good for me. Or maybe I'll bounce back to my normal optimistic self. We'll see.