Sometimes the problem isn’t the ability that one might have, it’s rather the measure, and this is one of the reasons why people end up spending years where they feel inadequate just because they’re being evaluated, or rather, judged by the wrong standard. And the result of this is they ending up trying to fit something that was never built for them. They try to force strengths into places where they don’t translate. And over time, they start to believe that they are not capable, not intelligent, or not enough.

But let us think for a second, what if it’s not a lack of ability, but just a mismatch in context? A fish doesn’t fail because it can’t climb a tree. It fails only when someone insists that it should climb a tree. And if we think about it, if we pause for introspection, perhaps we will see that we do this to ourselves more often than we realize. For example, we can compare our path to someone else’s. We can compare our strengths to environments that don’t need them. And we call this, without doubting, self-evaluation.

But discernment, an inner compass and clarity, we can change that. We can stop these irrational beliefs from taking root in our mind. And we stop asking, 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙖𝙢 𝙄 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨? And begin asking, 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜? So let us often remind ourselves that not every standard is worth measuring ourselves against.