Underestimation
Impostor syndrome rears its ugly head.
I’m not kidding myself when I say I have a long way to go before I reach where I want to be.
That’s why the last couple of weeks have thrown me for a loop.
I’ve had not one but four people I trust with my martial arts training tell me (not always in so many words) I am under-leveled. One person I could brush off as an anomaly, maybe even two if one of them was my training partner, but four? Something’s up with that.
I’ve come to the realization that I haven’t really taken a good look at how far I’ve come in the last couple of years, not just with martial arts, but with my consistency in showing up and my fitness.
I think a lot of people have this problem because tons of artists (amazing ones) go through the “I’m not good enough” stage multiple times in their careers.
Do I think I’m ready to test for my next rank? Not really, but that may be fear talking.
I had to ask myself, “what do they see that I don’t?”
Last year’s bout with fearlessness left me stepping forward in class to uke for my teacher more often than not. It hasn’t made my rolls much better, but it does give me a better understanding for what we’re working on in class. At my rank, fixing my rolls is something I need to be working on in my own time, not wasting class unless I’m doing something very wrong.
I’ve been focusing on where I want to be fitness-wise, but in reality, I’ve dropped over 30 pounds last year and have upped the amount of weight I can lift. Hell, I’m on track to beating one of my goals (the bar wall at obstacle training) in the next couple of months. I knocked over a minute off of my person best 5K run.
Instead of beating myself up for how far I have to go, I think I need to take some time to go over my wins and look back on how far I’ve come.
Weekly Goals
Write 7K words: Success thanks to a new idea that sprung to life on me. Still finishing up my rewrite on my one novel, but I had to get this one out of my head this week.
Read one book: Success. I finished Tyral by Kate Rudolph.
Go to the gym twice: Failure (two weeks in a row). Winter weather and a trip up north cause me to only make it once.
Go to class: Failure.
Sew ten dice bags: Failure.
