Raise your hand if you THRIVE on that feeling of getting something right. *Raises both hands and stands up immediately*

I can think back to grade school when my teacher would be passing out graded tests and I saw that 100% score and a cute, shiny little sticker next to it. Or when I’d raise my hand when a question was asked because I read that chapter and highlighted the main points so I was so sure of the answer. Maybe I was playing a video game and was able to perfectly beat it on my first try. Or even just sitting at home watching Family Feud and seeing an answer I guessed up on the board. Maybe that last one is just me because Family Feud is my favorite game show, but I digress. 

I’m not sure if it has to do with a desire for validation, an ego boost, or maybe just within our natural human makeup, but there’s just this instant jolt of energy you feel when you get something right. It gives us that feeling of “I know what I’m doing” or “I got this in the bag.” I’d say for most of my life, I focused a lot on the things I did right. Whether it was school, work, hobbies, relationships, etc. I always gave myself a pat on the back for the things that I naturally did well. 

While it was important for me from a confidence standpoint to grow in the things I was good at, very little of that time was spent on the things I wasn’t. I would avoid them more than anything, because that would have forced me to accept that there was some aspect of my life that I hadn’t yet figured out. 

Welcome to being human. 

This thought came to me recently as I’ve been a lot more curious about my overall health. Not necessarily only how I look, but more importantly how I feel and WHY I feel a certain way. Everything within our health is linked so it’s likely that if there’s a pitfall in your mental health, there might be something connected to your physical health, emotional health, or even spiritual health. Looking at this at more of a surface level, it’s forced me to be a lot more conscious about my consumption – whether that be food, media, social content, or even just my overall surroundings. 

When I was able to expose myself to better settings to help me make better choices for myself, my first thought was, “Wow, there’s a lot of s**t I really don’t know.” 

A previous version of me probably would’ve gotten a speech from my inner critic: “How did you not know this about yourself?” “How are you JUST figuring this out?” “You should have known this by now.” I could rattle off so many things I would’ve heard from that angry little voice in my head that probably just needs a nap, but anyway. It’s very easy to shame ourselves about the knowledge we don’t have, but I think the perspective shift needs to be that while you may have not had that knowledge then, you have it NOW. 

How great must it feel to know that you’ve had an issue with something that just wasn’t working, and now you have the knowledge and tools to fix it? Bringing it back to that school example, what if you were only capable of getting something to 80%, but now you have the knowledge to get to 90%? Then you get even more knowledge to get you to that 100%. Sure, it would have been great to have that knowledge sooner. But you didn’t and that is okay. Even if you had had that knowledge in the past, maybe you weren’t in the right headspace to even be able to digest it or even appreciate it. Now you are. 

I look back on previous versions of myself because I’ve changed more times than I could count, but previous versions of me may not have been mature enough to integrate the lessons I know now. Or maybe it took three or four times of hearing something, to then be able to finally grasp it the fifth time. 

Instead of shaming ourselves for the things we don’t know, wouldn’t it serve us better to just embrace it? To look at something and say “Wow, I didn’t know that then, but I’m so glad I do now.” That way, you’re able to remind yourself that you always have the capacity to learn more. Even if you’re an expert at something. Embracing what you don’t know simply means that you have the space to be even better, and when you get better, there will still be more to learn. So while you may get frustrated at the fact that what you don’t know is limitless, take a second to remind yourself that you too, are also limitless. And that is where your true power lies.