Latest / Thinking Out Loud | Kimberly / When Believing in Yourself Becomes Believing You're Better Than Everyone Else? | Thinking Out Loud
Transcript
- Kimberly: When does believing in yourself become believing you're better than everyone else? I remember when I went from being a community support worker to an intervention specialist. I was nervous. I was excited. And honestly, I was proud of myself. I had been training. I had gone back to school to finish the credits I needed to qualify. I had put in the work. Around the same time, I received an unexpected inheritance from my grandfather after spending way too much money of my own on my education. I remember the weight had lifted when I realized I could go back and finish those last credits without draining my savings or taking out another student loan. I had an opportunity. I was excited about it. I remember wanting to collaborate with another intervention specialist because they were also working with one of my clients. Subbing. I thought I was being helpful. I had years of experience with this particular client. And I had learned from these people that when someone else was working with a client, you knew well, you shared what you knew. You helped each other understand the person you were both supporting. So that's what I thought I was doing. another co-worker, someone who was still a community supports worker, watched this interaction. I remember her talking about how she was basically already doing the work of an intervention specialist. she had chosen not to go get the credits necessary to qualify for the certification and the pay that came with it. And then something happened that I still remember. This was someone I looked up to, someone whose opinion mattered to me. She took my excitement And use it as an example to influence a friend into thinking Kimberly thinks she's better than us. Apparently, I had been talking down to a more senior intervention specialist. Here's what I remember happening. I never told her how to be an intervention specialist. I wasn't trying to establish myself as more knowledgeable than someone who had been doing the job longer than I had. I was sharing what I knew about my client because that's what I had been taught collaboration looked like. Yet somehow my excitement about finally reaching something I had worked really hard for became evidence that I thought I was better than everyone else. And I believed them. I was ashamed that pride I had felt. the pride that came from going back to school, finishing requirements, spending the money, doing the work, and finally getting the opportunity I had worked towards, that feeling disappeared. I slowly stopped hanging out with those coworkers. I was hurt. Not simply because they misunderstood me. I looked up to them. Eventually it worked out. I met other people I learned more about autonomy. I learned there was a difference between thinking about behavior and supporting people. I learned that there was another way to do this job, a better way. during the separation from my co workers, they still decide to focus how can we get the client to do what we want. I was becoming increasingly interested in a different question. Why does this person have to do what we want in the first place? That experience stayed with me because now when someone asks me, do you think you're better than us, Kimberly? My answer isn't quite the same. Now I think, what do you do with that information? Well, that depends. Because there's a difference between someone misunderstanding your confidence and someone telling you something uncomfortable about yourself. There is a difference between being proud of what you've accomplished and believing you're superior. There's a difference between being accused of thinking you're better than someone and actually believing you are. Where exactly is the line? When does believing in yourself become believing you're better than everyone else? Welcome back to Thinking Out Loud. Hi, it's me, Kimberly. Before we go any further, a quick note. This podcast is for reflection and conversation, not professional advice. Take what resonates and leave the rest. Here we slow down and we explore life's gray areas, especially in relationships and behavior patterns we can observe and reflect on. I am not here to tell you what to think. I am here to offer framework that help you understand your relationship, strengthen your thinking, and hold space for complexity. Let's get to thinking out loud. I think what made me feel blinded by the comment is that I never thought I am better than someone. Maybe I thought I'm better than this treatment. Maybe I've thought I'm better at this game right now. I don't think I've ever stopped and asked what does it feel like to think you're better than someone else? sometimes I can see where people need to heal. I can recognize patterns in someone's behaviors. I can see where something they're doing might be hurting them or someone else. I don't think that makes me better than them. Sometimes I regress too. It happens. Sometimes it's easier to see something when you're standing outside of it than when you're the person living inside of it. At the same time, I do have to acknowledge that I have an eighty-five percent advantage when it comes to pattern recognition compared to the average being fifty percent. long term memory is a fortress. We don't talk about my short term memory though. Dory is off finding Nemo. Just let her be. She'll get where she needs to go. I do recognize that I have strengths that other people may not have. Other people have strengths that I don't have. why did this idea that I might think I'm better than someone else seem so foreign to me? I think some of it might have to do with how I was raised, good or bad. I was taught there was always room for improvement. I didn't really get good job, Kimberly. You did it, Kimberly. not even when I learned how to read finally. That wasn't necessarily a celebration. It was more like that's the least you could do. I struggled with reading from the time I was five until I was thirteen. when I struggled with how slowly I read, it wasn't necessarily taught you're struggling with reading. It was You're bad at reading. Then I graduated. Guess my disability disappeared, right? that's how it works, right? Except no, it doesn't. When I look at who I am now and everything I'm still untangling, I find myself asking When was I ever allowed to think I was better than anyone else? Sure, I was told they're jealous of you, Kimberly. The very person who told me that was also the person who made sure I understood that Being good enough wasn't enough because it wasn't perfect. Of course they weren't perfect either. Bombastic side eye. No one is. My point is that for most of my life I have been humbled. I'm starting to realize how damaging that has been. not necessarily have to be told to humble myself. I naturally do it. I will find the reason I'm wrong. I will find what I could have done better. I will question whether I'm being too much. I will wonder whether my excitements is ignorance. Maybe that's the part of why this question has become so uncomfortable for me. Because I'm realizing there is a difference between humility and automatically making yourself smaller. I've actually caught myself doing something that helped me understand this better. I remember throwing my client off during a game we were playing. I questioned their move because at first I didn't understand what they were doing and then I realized oh-no. They could have won. They were just playing their own chaotic way. And it was an impressive move. I never thought of it. that moment made me think about something else, sometimes I'm trying to be helpful at the expense of the other person's right to learn. There are rules in a game. As long as we're following the rules, people have the right to play the game their way. Even if I don't understand their strategy. Even if I don't make that choice. Even if I can see a strategy that I think might work better. Sometimes the strategy I would use isn't actually the strategy they need to discover for themselves. That's something I want to watch in myself Because knowing something doesn't automatically give me the right to impose it. Maybe that's one of the places where believing in yourself starts getting complicated. I can know I'm good at recognizing patterns. I can know I'm developing skills through experiences. I can know that sometimes I see something another person doesn't see and still I don't have to make their way wrong simply because it isn't mine. And that doesn't make me less capable. It makes room for them to be capable too. something I've learned about my autism evaluation was this. I am smart. My IQ is around 75-percentile. It would probably be higher if my short term memory wasn't operating around fifteen percent. Anyways, back to finding Nemo, Dory. She's off somewhere looking for Nemo. And seriously, this was a pretty big realization for me because my whole life I thought I was an idiot. I thought I was stupid. I thought I never had anything worth saying. So I rambled a lot. I hadn't learned the skill of making my rambles make sense yet. That came later. Then I just started to think out loud. Because I started thinking about All the times someone took what I had said and twisted it to fit whatever they wanted and had already decided I was. I'm starting to wonder, is it really my autism that was scaring people away? Because I've heard people say that's unavoidable, that some people aren't going to understand me, that having autism means there will always be people who find me difficult. And maybe that's true sometimes. I'm starting to wonder if that's the whole story. What if it isn't my autism? What if sometimes it's my intelligence? Or more specifically, What I'm realizing now is my confidence in my intelligence. What if being confident in what I know makes people feel small? Because I can relate. I hate being wrong. It's painful. I don't think it's because I believe I'm better than everyone else. I think it's painful because I care. I care about getting it right. I care about how my actions affect people. I don't enjoy hurting people. I genuinely want people to get along. But not at their expense. I want people to forgive. Not because I think they're going to hell if they don't. I want people to forgive because I hope they can eventually forgive past versions of themselves. As how they feel about the person who abused them, that's personal. That's not for me to decide. And yet I have been called a master manipulator. Why? Because I could articulate myself. I could explain what I'm experiencing. Because I could point out, actually what you taught me was harmful is what you're doing to me. mic drop. Sometimes we use the word manipulation when what we're actually experiencing is another person having the ability to articulate a boundary we don't like. Sometimes someone being able to explain exactly why something hurts us feels threatening, especially when that explanation forces us to look at our own behavior. I also don't want to use the observation as an excuse to assume I'm always right because I can articulate myself and I still can be wrong. I can still recognize patterns and still misinterpret one. I can have good intentions and still hurt someone. I can be intelligent and still have blind spots. I think that's the part of confidence that matters. Confident doesn't mean I never question myself. It means I can question myself without immediately deciding I'm stupid. And that's a very different experience for me. For most of my life, being wrong meant, see, you're stupid. Now being wrong can mean, okay, I was wrong. One destroys your sense of self, the other gives you information. And maybe that's why I'm becoming less afraid of confidence. Because I'm realizing that believing in myself doesn't mean believing I'm always right. it can mean trusting that I can survive being wrong. I can learn. I can apologize. I can change my mind. I can listen. I can say, I don't know. And none of those things make me less intelligent. In fact, maybe those are parts of what allows intelligence to actually be useful. Because the only kind of manipulation I'm interested in doing is helping people believe in themselves. Helping people respect other people's autonomy. And asking the honest question, Am I a good person? Or do I need to feel like a good person in order to function and cope? Because those aren't the same things. I don't want to convince someone they're a good person just so they can feel comfortable with themselves. I want us to be able to look at ourselves honestly to say, did I do something shitty without deciding therefore I am a shitty person? also to say I did something good Without needing the good thing to prove, therefore I am a good person. Maybe that's the balance I'm looking for. Not I'm better than you, not I'm worse than you. Rather, I am a human being who has strengths, weaknesses, patterns, blind spots, experiences, and room to grow. So do you. And maybe believing in yourself isn't convincing yourself that you're better than everyone else. Maybe it's about finally believing that you don't have to be better than anyone else to have something valuable to offer. it's been wild lately. People reaching out to me, the way they talk to me so professionally, and I'm over here thinking, Sir, ma'am, or a dragon, you have written a book. You're a coach. You have all these incredible things going for you. You want to interview with me. My flabber is gaspid. When I ask my husband and my best friend about it, okay, let's be honest. When I whine to my husband and my best friend about it, I feel like an imposter. And they're all what do you mean? These people are cool. Exactly. They're so cool. what do you mean they want to talk to me? my husband and my best friend. Kimberly, you've always been this cool. You've always been this smart. And I'm sitting here thinking, have I? Because I have never thought That I was doing anything particularly special. I thought I was rambling, I thought I was thinking out loud. What if that's the point? I never thought my rambles that I'm trying to make sense of the things out loud would become anything more than a random woman going through postpartum trying to make sense of her own pain while simultaneously trying to see the good in people and still be able to say that was harmful and I will not side with that behavior. I thought I was simply trying to figure stuff out. I'm starting to realize something. I have always been confident. I didn't know I was doing it. People called me bold because I was willing to confront my bullies I didn't think, look at me being brave and confident. I thought you're treating me like shit. And I'm going to say something about it. And people called me ugly. Now I'm looking back at pictures at myself from years ago. When people were calling me ugly and I'm like, wait a minute, I was hot. I think I still am. Eventually, I'll adventure out into my Adam Sandler best, being comfy and fashionable. I'm in no rush. Comfort is a priority for me. Maybe that's part of what I'm finding again. My confidence isn't necessarily coming from suddenly deciding I'm beautiful. I'm coming from knowing what I like. from being able to look at myself and say, I like me and maybe being myself is what makes the most beautiful version of myself. I remember getting a plaque at track and field for being motivational or inspirational and thinking, what do you mean? I wasn't trying to inspire anyone, I was doing the thing. I liked people. I wanted them to stop limiting themselves. It actually really annoys me. because you're freaking cool. you can do it. What do you mean, Kim? it just takes time. you can do it. I wanted to help people believe in themselves. I think sometimes confidence is simply being authentic. I can stumble, I can freak out, I can think I'm overreacting. I need to calm down. That line from Smosh that made me feel so seen when I freak out. Because yes, sometimes I am absolutely going to be dramatic about something before I regulate myself and I think that's human. Confidence doesn't mean I walk away perfectly composed, knowing exactly who I am and what I'm doing all the time. What the hell does that mean? Sometimes confidence looks like, I might have been wrong. Then figuring it out. I didn't know I was being confident when I was being myself. I didn't know that some people were trying to neg me because of it. I didn't know that sometimes the people who are supposed to care about me were responding to their own insecurities by trying to make me feel smaller. I certainly didn't understand that simply being able to make my own choices could be a form of confidence. Going off script, making my own decisions, living with the consequences of those decisions, good or bad, and thinking, okay, if I'm wrong, I'll figure it out. I thought that was just life, and I'm starting to realize that was confidence the whole time. Then I look at what I've been doing with my clients, with my girls, and pretty much any kid I interact with. Yes, I call out behaviors, of course I do. That's not the heart of what I'm trying to accomplish. The question underneath it is, how can I help you feel capable? How can I help you believe you can do this? And how can I help you make choices? How can I make room to help you figure things out? How can I help you understand that making a mistake doesn't mean you're stupid? how can I teach you that another person's discomfort doesn't automatically mean you've done something wrong? How can I help you develop confidence without teaching you that confidence means superiority? I'm starting to realize that's what I've been trying to do all along. I simply didn't have the language for it. I wasn't trying to make people dependent on me. I wasn't trying to make myself the smartest person in the room. I wasn't trying to control people. I was trying to help people believe they were capable of navigating their own lives, and maybe that's why the treatment I received from certain people hurt so much. I didn't just feel misunderstood. I felt like people were taking something I thought was good, my ability to think independently, articulate myself, make choices, question things, and turning it into evidence that something was wrong with me. their insecurities became justifications For treating me poorly. Their misunderstandings became a villain archetype. I wasn't even involved in writing. seriously. If you're going to make a villain story about me, the least you could do is let me write the character. Because I had probably much more interesting things to say. No, I didn't mean it to be shitty. That's the part I keep coming back to. I don't want to become so confident in myself that I stop caring about how I affect people. I don't wanna be afraid of being perceived as arrogant that I start apologizing for existing confidently. I don't wanna make myself smaller because someone else feels small beside me. I don't wanna make someone else smaller because I know something they don't. And maybe that's the line. not whether I think I'm beautiful, not whether I think I'm good at something and not whether other people think I'm impressive. The question for me is what do I do with what I know about myself? Do I use it to elevate myself above people? Or do I use it to become more capable of standing beside them? Because maybe believing in yourself was never the problem. maybe that's what confidence actually is. Back to the question. When does believing in yourself become believing you're better than everyone else? I don't think the answer is when you think highly of yourself. I think it becomes a problem when your belief in yourself requires someone else to be smaller. I've spent a lot of my life thinking I had to be humbled. I learned to automatically look where I was wrong, where I could have done better, where I was being too much, and I think for a long time I confused that with humility. Humility isn't the same thing as making yourself small. I can recognize my strengths without pretending I don't have them. I can be intelligent without assuming I'm always right. I can be good at something without believing I'm a better human being. I can be proud of myself without needing to be less impressive. I can question myself without immediately deciding that I'm stupid. Maybe that's part of confidence I didn't understand. Confidence isn't believing I'm better than you. It isn't even believing I'm always right. It's about being able to say this is what I know, this is what I believe, this is what I'm capable of. Still having enough humility to say I could be wrong because other people get to have their own experiences, their own strengths. Their own strategies, their own autonomy, They don't have to make my way wrong simply because they don't understand it. I think that's what I'm learning about confidence. It's not about winning with compassion. It's not about getting out of the comparison altogether. I'm not better than you. I'm not worse than you. I am me and you are you. we both have strengths. We both have weaknesses, we both have blind spots. We both have things we know that the other person doesn't. We both have things we still need to learn. Maybe believing in yourself isn't about finally deciding you're better than everyone else. Maybe it's about realizing You never needed to be. Whether you leave a comment, send me a message, or simply sit with these questions yourself. I hope this conversation stays with you. Thank you for slowing down and thinking out loud with me. Until next time, take care of yourself. And remember, your confidence doesn't require someone else to be less than you. I'll see you in the next episode.