The most common reaction that people have when they think back to emotionally challenging experiences is, “Oh, I just wasn’t good enough.”
That’s very different from writing an article and wondering, “Is this a high-quality article?” This is a great question to ask because it will help you identify the criteria for high-quality work. By knowing these criteria, you will write a better article.
Observe the difference between “Is this a high-quality article?” and “Am I a good writer?” When you ask the latter question, you might hesitate and lower your self-worth. This leads to a feeling of despair. Instead of facing challenges and giving them your best shot, you get swept up in a mixture of overthinking and insecurity.
So how do we separate the two? Challenge the quality of your work, but never challenge your self-worth. At your core, you are whole. Nothing can diminish your inherent value.
You can further improve the quality of your work by changing “Is this a high-quality article?” to “What could make this article better?” This more specific approach avoids the heightened emotion connected to the vague “This is great” versus “This is terrible.” Your most perceptive insights emerge when you sit behind the article and contemplate both its strengths and weaknesses. Notice how this has everything to do with the article and nothing to do with you.
In the same way that you separate the quality of your work from the quality of yourself, it is equally important to distinguish between what happened in the past and who you are today. You are not your work. You are not your profession. You are not the situations you have encountered. You are something far greater.
This article is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Choose Your Work
Dan Dobos writes about decision making, personal growth, human potential, fulfillment and helping people choose the work that they are meant to do. He is the author of Choose Your Work.