If you’re thinking “I’m not good at anything” I know exactly how you feel.
I used to think that I wasn’t good at anything and I didn’t have anything to offer the world.
That time was a really difficult time in my life, there were so many things that I wanted to change but I felt disempowered and stuck.
If you don’t believe you are good at anything you probably don’t believe you are very capable and that can stand in your way and prevent you from doing the things you really want to do in your lifetime.
It’s important to find things that you are good at and give yourself credit so you can build the confidence you need to get what you want out of life.
The belief that you’re not good at anything is just a belief you picked up somewhere, it’s not a fact.
Beliefs can be changed and it’s important that you shift your views about yourself and your capabilities so you don’t end up missing out on opportunities in your life.
Self-Worth
If you don’t feel like you’re not good at anything you probably need to examine your self-worth.
When I was depressed I felt like there weren’t any good parts of me and I didn’t have anything to offer the world.
That was just the mental illness and my low self-esteem talking though and not the truth.
It’s important that you know and believe there are amazing parts of you and you have unique and special gifts to offer the world.
Throughout the history of the world, there has never been anyone like you.
We are all made completely unique because the world needs you and the diversity you bring to life.
If you’re struggling with self-worth I recommend talking to a therapist to help you get to the root of that belief.
In order to build your talents and figure out what you’re good at you have to believe that you are worthy of being great at something.
If you don’t believe you deserve to excel at something you will keep self-sabotaging to prevent yourself from getting better and making progress in your life.
Journal Prompts:
- Why do you believe you aren’t good at anything?
- How has this beliefe impacted your life so far?
- How will it impact your life in the future?
- Is this belief going to help you build a blissful life?
Identity
If you’ve internalized the identity as someone who isn’t good at anything you’re going to need to give yourself a new identity.
I have a whole podcast episode you can check out about this here.
You need to start identifying yourself as someone that is talented and capable.
When you give yourself the identity of someone that isn’t good at anything your subconscious mind internalizes that as the 100% undisputable truth.
It will cause you to sabotage yourself even when you don’t realize you’re doing it because it believes that you’re not good at anything and going to fail.
You have to train your brain that you are a capable human being and able to do lots of things.
Journal prompts:
- How do you identify yourself?
- Brainstorm some new more empowered version of your identity you could try out
- What identity would the kindest version of yourself choose?
- If you believed everyone had special and unique gifts to bring to the world what would yours be?
Give Yourself Grace
I used to bully myself inside my own mind all the time.
If I made a mistake I would tell myself things like “you can’t do anything right” or “you’re always going to be a failure”.
This internal dialogue made it very difficult to try new things because my brain knew if I made a mistake I was going to attack myself.
This caused a lot of anxiety to come up and eventually I was too scared to try anything new.
If you want to discover what you’re good at you have to give yourself the grace to discover your talents and passions.
You might really enjoy a hobby or activity that you haven’t tried yet.
If you’re scared to try new things you will miss out on the possibility of having more joy and happiness in your life.
Very few people are good at things the first time they try them.
When you try new things are you kind to yourself when you make mistakes?
Do an audit of your internal dialogue for a few days and notice when you say unkind things to yourself.
How can you start giving yourself more kindness and grace?
Give Yourself Permission to Suck
When we start new things we aren’t usually going to excel at them right away.
If you want to get good at something you have to give yourself permission to suck.
Going through the process of not being very good at something is kind of a right of passage.
I’d be willing to bet there aren’t any successful people that got where they are without any cringe-worthy moments. Everyone makes mistakes and sucks at things sometimes.
Give yourself permission to try things and be bad at them just for the sake of experimenting and finding things that you enjoy.
Your goal should be to find something that you really love not something you are good at right away.
You can get better at anything with practice and time, it’s just a matter of figuring out what excites you enough to dedicate the effort to it.
Redefine Failure
Stick With Something
If you want to be really good at something you have to stick with it long enough to improve.
Set a one month, three month, 6 month and one-year goal for yourself.
Make a plan of when you are going to practice and how you will get better and achieve your goals for the year.
Getting better at something requires commitment and planning (I use this planner), a lot of people never get good at something because they quit before they start to see progress or get the rewards for their hard work.
Get Positive
I’ve already talked about changing your inner dialogue but if you’ve been beating yourself up for a long time you probably need to spend some time modifying your inner dialogue.
In order to reprogram your brain to believe that you ARE good at things, you need to pour some serious positive energy into your mind.
My favorite ways to do this are with affirmations and by listening to positive podcasts or audiobooks.
Giving your brain lots of positive messages will help counteract all of the negativity you’ve fed it in the past and help you develop a better internal dialogue going forward.
I understand that becoming a more positive person is difficult, I used to be really negative about everything in my life.
Practicing gratitude and choosing to focus on the blessings in my life has completely transformed every aspect and relationship in my life.
Figure out what you like about yourself and your life and choose to focus on that instead of focusing on the the negative aspects of your life.
Take a Personality Test
If you don’t know where to start to find out what you’re good at try taking a personality test to give you some ideas of your strengths and weaknesses.
My favorite personality tests are the Myers Briggs and the Human Design System.
I don’t think any personality test is 100% accurate because human beings are so complex and we all have our individually unique experiences and views that shape our personality.
However, taking a personality test might bring some strengths that you’ve been overlooking to light.
Gaining insight into yourself is always useful and can help you think about yourself differently and offer you a different perspective of yourself.
If you’ve been thinking “I’m not good at anything” I hope this article helps you start to see things differently.
I believe you are made perfect and unique just as you are and you have lots of unique gifts and insight to bring into the world.
If you’re looking for more mental health resources be sure to check out my other blog posts and subscribe to my mental health podcast.
Want to remember this post? Pin it to your favorite Pinterest board!
