Compared to What? Belief in Yourself is Key to Happiness
Today I wanted to talk about wrapping up our life skill of Belief, and having a strong sense of worth and a strong sense of belief in ourselves. Over the past week or two, I have heard a lot of people using comparisons in their life and comparisons are dangerous. We want to make sure that we are not comparing ourselves to other people. The problem with that is you set up the parameters of what you are comparing so you can either make yourself feel good, but more often than not, people make themselves feel bad. What I mean by that is if I compare myself to a homeless person, I’m great. I’m a king, I have everything you could ever dream and want. But if I compare myself to say, Bill Gates, I’m, I’m terrible. I’m awful, and I haven’t done anything with my life. So however you set up the parameters, you are setting yourself up to see success or failure.
People who believe in themselves don’t compare themselves to anybody else. The only comparison that we have is against ourselves,
Am I doing better today than I was doing yesterday?
Am I doing better today than I was a month ago?
That way, the challenge is always to improve ourselves and make sure that we are getting better. It doesn’t matter that Bill Gates has billions of dollars. He has worked hard. He has done his thing. He has followed his path, and that is what he has earned.
On the other hand, somebody who is living on the streets and has no money, that is unfortunate. I don’t have to compare myself them so that I feel better. And I certainly don’t want to compare myself to somebody who’s a lot better off so that I feel worse.
We want to start instilling this strong sense of belief in ourselves, in our kids, so that way, they don’t grow up and follow the trend of not feeling good because somebody else has something better. It’s always going happen, somebody is going have more money, somebody is going have a bigger house, somebody is going to drive a nicer car, somebody is going more handsome or prettier than you. It doesn’t matter. You only need to compare yourself to where you are at and what you are doing.
The life skill of Belief in ourselves is where we are starting this with the kids, and therefore with the parents. We want you to be able to start doing this as well. Stop comparing yourselves to other people. It doesn’t matter. And definitely stop comparing your child to other kids. I hear this way too often.
“Well, I don’t think they should test for their belt because this other student is doing a lot better and they are the same belt color.”
It doesn’t matter. How are they today compared to how were they a month ago. If they have improved, then they definitely deserve the new belt. We are always looking for those small increments and improvements.
Parents sometimes set that bar way too high. They think their child has to jump over a mountain in order to receive a reward. We are looking for 1% improvement in ourselves, or in the child, in order to improve the belief in themselves. Then they will want to continue to want to try.
Think about this: if your child improves 1%, every day for the next year, how much more belief are they going to have in themselves? It’s going to be huge. So you want to make sure that you are doing that. If they improve 1%, if they do something well, give them a high five, congratulations or a reward.
Finally, an offshoot of this topic is the “I’m behind” theory. Again, that is comparing yourself to something or somebody else. “
Well, I should be over here because I was doing this or I have done that, so now I’m behind.”
It doesn’t matter.
There is no behind in life. Everybody is on their own path. Everybody is walking their own journey. You are at where you are at, now decide what to do.
How do we get to the goal?
We want to teach this to the kids so that way, they are always striving to do better with themselves and not feeling bad, because then it’s easy to give up.
They say, “It’s too hard.” Or “I can’t.”
And as soon as they start to develop that negative mindset, everything starts to spiral into negative. We definitely don’t want to let them do that.
So making sure that our children have a strong belief in themselves by not comparing themselves to anybody else, and instead, only to themselves; how they are doing and where they are at right now, and teaching them that there is no behind in life.
Here is where we are today.
Here is where we need to be.
Let’s get started.
It is one of the big skills that I like to teach here at the karate school. What we are doing is so much more important than teaching a sidekick or memorizing a karate form. That is the essence of what I want to deliver to our students.