The stories we tell ourselves…
My six year old nephew is football mad. So much so that I am greeted with news of that day’s games rather than hello. We’re working on it! He can’t comprehend the fact that I while I love him more than words can express, I have zero interest in football. It’s utterly beyond his understanding that I could possibly mean it when I say I don’t like football. He’s also at the age that he thinks he’s a brilliant football player. He could be right, I’m certainly no judge but this got me thinking about my experience of sport at school, or more specifically the dreaded “picking of teams”. I’m pretty sure it’s a universal childhood experience, whether during a games lesson or on the playground two children selected to pick teams. I was always, without fail, the very last to be picked. Now, when I was the same age as my nephew this really hurt because like most children of that age, I thought I was good at sport, or at least as good as everyone else. I was wrong – very wrong and as I got older, I could see that. By the time I was at high school I was under no illusion, I was useless at any sport that involved throwing, catching, hitting or running – so pretty much every team sport. Whilst the picking of teams was still torturous, I was under no illusion that even if my very best friend was picking I would be last because no one would wish my lack of sporting prowess on the rest of the team. I learnt to laugh about it and took it with good grace. But, in that younger period when I thought I was at least as good as everyone else it hurt. It really hurt and as far as I was concerned it could only possibly be about not being popular enough.
As I coach I often hear the “I’m not enough” phrase. I’m not good enough, thin enough, popular enough, clever enough, old enough, young enough. When my clients and I begin to examine these beliefs, it’s amazing how often getting picked last for sports teams comes up. Our six, ten, twelve, fifteen-year-old self made a decision in that moment and we’re still playing it out decades later. What if our younger self was wrong? What if our younger self had made a different assumption? What if, as adults, we stopped and thought about the fact that we’re seeing the behaviour and decisions of other children as evidence of who we are and our worth as a grown women?
What stories do you tell yourself about your self-worth? When was the last time you actually questioned their truth? What may have had a basis of truth twenty years ago doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on the current truth – the capable woman with many achievements under her belt. What if you decided I am going to believe that I am enough? What if we started and finished every day by telling and reminding ourselves that we are enough. Imagine a world full of women who know they are enough and believe in themselves. That’s the world I want to live in. That’s the world I want my nephew to grow up in.
