This is a little bit of an odd question, but hear me out. I’ve always been a loser at just about everything i try to do or win and my mentality in any situation has always been “this is the part where i lose/fuck something up, right?” only for me to then indeed lose or fuck up something important. Whether it be competitive video games, or being asked to do something difficult, i usually mess up to some degree.
it’s made me afraid of letting my friends down whenever they place any faith in me or try to tell me things like “we’re so gonna win!” or “you can do this!” or “there’s no way you’re gonna lose to that person” because i rarely will ever meet that expectation. i know things won’t always go in my favor because that’s just life, but i wish i had the confidence to be able to take their words to heart and meet that expectation. Is this some self worth/doubt issue? how do you all deal with that kind of support?
6 comments
Don’t take any of this the wrong way as I’m not good at explaining about like this. But here goes.
Maybe they’re your friends. Maybe they know you suck at things but don’t care because they are your fucking friends. The realist friends you’ll ever get. Shit dude they’re family with this kinda support. Maybe they wanna instill in you the belief of victory so you’ll find it in yourself to better yourself and achieve where they know you’re capable. The people you speak of showing you love and support time again even after you’ve failed are the ones that will be there when you need a shoulder to cry on, someone to pick you up when you’re down, and write possibly the friend you need when you’re days become darkened by thoughts that cannot be taken lightly. Brother what you have there is family. You may not see why you shine but someone sees it in you, you just gotta clean the glass and the light out. That’s the journey.
Like I said, I’m shite at explaining but there you have it.
Yes, of course you have a self worth issue.
I’d say you’re looking at these things all wrong. You’re looking at a competitive space and determining your reliability through success. Really, you need to look at your reliability through effort. People love it if you’re there for them at all. Things like showing up and being willing go a long way. The effort is what gives people faith in you, the success is downstream of that.
Look them square in the eye and tell them that you are not going to meet their expectation, but you will do your best. True friends will understand that every person has strengths and weaknesses, and by pointing yours out you will lower their expectations of you at certain tasks.
From the way you phrase this question I take it you are quite young (probably under 20) so you have a lot of living to do and a lot of self discovery to come. You may not be the best at a video game, but maybe your written skills are better or you can work wood or metal, lay brick, draw or paint, do maths or understand biology better than somebody else. Take your time, try things and see what you enjoy and what comes easy, then work on that.
Well the first thing I do when I fail at something is examine why I failed. I’m not a gamer, but if I lost some gaming competition, repeatedly, I might examine whether it’s just not one of my talents and maybe it’s something that is better suited to just for fun for me.
For these other difficult things you mention, same thing. Did you possess the prerequisite skills to accomplish those tasks? Sometimes it is hard for me to say no to a friend because I want to help them, but I have to understand that the task they need help with just isn’t in my wheelhouse.
A trick is to say that you can’t do *the* best. But you can do your best. Nuff said
I don’t accept compliments well, and I have low self-esteem so I figure when people support me, or say they have faith in me, I…just think they’re kidding. Not lying, and not trying to make me feel better, but…ignoring my mistakes? I really don’t know how to phrase what I want to say :/