I Am Awesome

You are what you say you are…or will become what you say you will.

“Damn…I’m so clumsy”, “I never do anything right”, “I’ll never get that promotion” – these are the types of things we all say on a day to day basis. Flippant comments that aren’t fully thought through.

But the have an affect.

In the past, I came to realise that I was pretty down and I thought about all of the things I used to say and each time I said them (and how they made me feel).  I was my own worst enemy. I would receive compliments on work and I would pass them off as unearned as I was just lucky that day or someone else did all of the hard work (never once really acknowledging the things that I did).  I would receive a compliment on losing weight, and instead of taking it with aplomb, I would focus on the negative and say “I have so much more to lose”.  Like I said, own…worst…enemy.

I..am…awesome

I started with responses to other people.  “How are you today Phillip?”, I began replying “I…am…awesome”.  Contrary to my “fine, I suppose” or “not bad”, this tended to make people smile (I mean, what type of self involved weirdo say’s that he is awesome), which made me smile.

I would do things around the office – I would create a presentation or develop some sort of document for some program we were running or I would (insert various activities here) and would often receive comments like “how do you even know how to do that” or “how did you do that so quickly” and I would respond “I…am…awesome”.

Pretty soon, I began to believe it. Every time I said it, people would smile (initially because it was slightly ridiculous, but then because they were happy with me being awesome), then I would smile.

My grandmother used to tell me when I was a child “Phillip, you can do anything you put your mind to”.  I don’t recall when I stopped believing this, but I did stop.  I started doubting myself. I started talking myself down. I started telling myself that I couldn’t do things.

Being awesome was the complete opposite and a step in the right direction.  It pulled me from what I see now as quite a dark, depressed place that I think, had it gotten any darker, could have had tragic consequences.  It allowed me to see the positive in a lot of what I do, it allowed me to realise that I do have potential for greatness and led to development of a career growth, development and promotion.

So…I try to tell the kids they are awesome (sure I slip up from time to time when they do something idiotic or dangerously dumb), I try to tell the kids that they “can do anything they put their minds to” and that when they do, we’ll be there to tell them how awesome they are.