Written by Patrik Fridland
This is a follow up of sorts to my previous blog post “Exemplar Recognitions – It’s all about the point of view” found HERE.
This blog post is based on my observations, my thoughts and my experience. The goal is to share how I see others, and why I think I among others have too high a standard for what is good or just what is expected of us as judges, both when it comes to my expectations on myself but also others.
AWE
How many times have you seen other judges do things that just awe you? I do it all the time, see others do things I want to be able to do. Do things I wish I did. Know things I want to know. I think I can go on and on here and just keep adding to the list.
So how does this affect me? First off it makes me feel like I’m not good enough, as I see all this greatness around me. Instead of just inspiring me to better myself, and complement the other, I instead get jealous and get deflated.
Is this fair towards myself?
The short and simple answer is; No!
The longer answer is that of course this is not fair towards myself, and it seldom is.
I have my skill set, others have their skill sets.
I for example pride myself of my ability to “read” other people, and a big reason why I can do that is based on my childhood. This taught me to “read” my environment on a daily basis, an environment that quite often was outside what is considered normality.
So would I hold others to the standard of reading others I do myself?
No, of course not. It would be totally unfair to hold others to that standard.
The Root Cause
Now I will go into the difficult part, the part that almost warps my own mind (maybe totally).
To find out how good someone is at the specific skill we need to quantify them. I will do a 1-9 scale here, as it gives us a median at 5.
What happens when I look at a 9, when I’m a 7. Can I then see how good the 5 is?
Maybe even when looking at a 9, when a 8 myself looking at a 7.
I believe that I tend to look at others from time to time that are below me in a skill and see the discrepancy and think along the lines of “Wow they really need to improve”. Not seeing that they are already having a skill set that if put on a scale would be 5 or greater. Cause when I look at others above me I see the discrepancy and feel “Wow I won’t ever get to that point”
I would say this is not fair for two reasons.
- I belittle myself, my skill set and my potential progression.
- I belittle others, their skill set and their potential progression.
With that said let’s look at me as a whole. I see myself as a mosaic of different behaviors and skills.
To evaluate myself I seldom if ever compare me as a whole towards someone else. But piece by piece against the others piece. But even more so I take a piece of me and compare it towards one person and then another of my pieces towards a totally new and different person. This in the long run has me comparing myself not only against one other person, but a whole group of people.
I can’t remember where I read it, but I read about how we these days when on social media compare ourselves with others, and feel deflated cause “everyone” else does so much, has the time for so much, traveling, cooking baby food from scratch, keeping a neat home, going out clubbing with friends. etc.
The secret IS, others don’t do more, they don’t have that much time. But others do prioritize differently.
What we do is compare ourselves as a single person to so many others. There is no way one person will have the time as a hundred people. So we end up with a skewed picture.
I feel that this is on the same topic as I have been trying to show earlier. That when we look at the best at one specific area we can be almost as great, fail to see it and in the long run forget how good others can be even if not as good as oneself.
What now?
That is the million dollar question. I will be honest, I don’t think there is a single solution, but I do believe in solutions.
Be fair towards yourself, and don’t try to compare yourself towards others all the time. They have different experiences, different amounts of experiences.
See you for you and know as long as you try you are good enough. I can’t stress that last part enough. YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH whatever happens, you are good enough.
When seeing others see them for them, what they do, how they do it, and don’t compare it towards your own level or someone else level. I would say that the risk is that you won’t see that they are great cause you don’t see how great you are.
Talk to your peers when you feel that you aren’t doing good enough, when you feel that the things you do are not enough. I’m certain that you will find yourself surrounded by people just like you. And I at least find comfort when not being alone.
I would also want to say;
Have fun! And do things you find enjoyable. It is a bit of a buzzword but as so often with them they tend to have a great amount of truth with them.
Patrik Fridland 2019
Special thanks to:
Oli Bird, for feedback and editing
Maverick Chamberlain, for “Sangria” and discussion in Warsaw
Sara Thörn, for being there, always