Dear Reader,

I am prone to fall into a sense of inadequacy, more often than I would like. That feeling is sometimes the cause of a certain kind of paralysis: how can I act, if I’m not adequate/good enough/self-assured?

In a sense, this could also be seen as a blessing in disguise.

How could this be?

I don’t like people that are too confident in their skills or their beliefs. People without doubts are just dangerous, in my opinion. Keeping a healthy dose of scepticism about ourselves and our spectrum of convictions is a safety measure put into place to keep our hubris in check and to keep our eyes open to new opportunities for learning. To put it straight, and to use an abused quote, you cannot learn anything if you think you already know everything.

So, what I try to do is to put a sense of inadequacy into my life deliberately. I go to the gym and watch the toughest guys. I go to work and seek out the most efficient, knowledgeable coworkers. I turn on YouTube and watch the best guitarists of the planet.

Beware: that is not just “for inspiration”! I want to feel the roof falling under my feet every time, I want my beliefs to be crushed, the house of my knowledge to be demolished by observing what they do in respect to what I would do.

Only on those ruins I can construct a better me, like a weightlifter constantly tearing his muscles to allow further growth, even if the lift can cause paralysis, now and then.

Until next time, happy training!