Gauge Your Skill Based On Doubt And Accusations Instead Of Compliments
I love hearing compliments, but it also makes me wonder how authentic they really are
I have a tough time receiving compliments (especially from people who are nice to me).
I’m part of an online community of storytellers where it is encouraged to be honest (without being an a-hole).
And because being “rude” or “disrespectful” is prohibited, I feel like they were “forced” to say something nice. Now I know this isn’t true because they didn’t need to leave a comment on my post. They could’ve just moved on with their day. That said, it’s highly likely they are being real about it.
But when my imposter syndrome surfaces, I somehow blind myself from all that and dismiss the positive feedback.
And almost all the time, I regret it…
They’ve given me a gift, but I threw it back to them.
I robbed them of the opportunity to be a supportive community member. How I reacted did not strengthen our bond as members of the same community. If I keep reacting that way, it will only be a matter of time until they stop paying attention.
But I crave that attention…
My imposter syndrome and my ego conditioned me to gauge the level of my skills based on negative criticism.
That means, I only listen comments from people who are hard to please (those who are unafraid of hurting my feelings). Compliments or praises (from people I care about — the ones who encourage me to keep going but don’t wanna hurt my feelings) are dismissed because they don’t tell me what I need to improve on.
To get better at what I do, I need brutally honest feedback.
What you see in public doesn’t always reveal the reality
Growing up (in the Philippines), I’ve always desired to receive a medal to show off to my parents. But I wasn’t as smart as my cousins — almost always at the top of their class. The best I could do is to be in the top 50.
In other words, I’m an average elementary student.
For context, the (public) elementary school I went to has a total of about 200 students in each grade level. These students are divided into 4 groups (of fifty students) and ranked according to their academic performance. Being in the top 50 is already something to be proud of. It means:
“I may not be smart, but I’m not that stupid”.
When the time to move to high school came, I had to take an entrance exam to get into a public high school.
This was a big deal for someone who couldn’t afford the tuition fees for a private school. Most of the students are in that category, which means, bigger competition. However, the school is not exclusive to families with low income. The entrance exam exists to filter the smartest students in town.
As an average student, this made me nervous and anxious.
But when the results came, I ranked #13.
It was a WTF moment. How was that even possible? I’m not that smart! I’m not complaining, I’m just surprised at how lucky I was.
One of the professors (who knew my dad) joked about where my dad got the answer keys from. My dad used to work in the school’s college branch. He likely knew someone from the inside to give him the answer keys. Given those facts, it could very well look like I cheated.
But what he and other students didn’t know was that I studied my butt off and gave up my summer break for that exam.
Results speak louder than words
When I was in high school in the Philippines, they taught us how to write and edit newspaper-type articles.
I didn’t do well in that class. My English was pretty rusty. I would often get another friend (who spoke better English) to edit my work. But I cannot forget this one article I wrote that drew the following comment:
“Did you really write that…?”
It felt like he was indirectly accusing me of plagiarizing.
But I did not feel offended at all. His doubts made sense if you look at my track record in writing. It was a fluke!
However, I remember thinking, “Hmm I might just have a future in writing”.
For some reason, my ego loved seeing his reaction. My ego was aware of how much time I spent editing that article. He was free to make all these assumptions about me. But I won’t stop it.
The less I justify, the less I influence his perception of me and the more real the feedback.
I felt validated when I was accused of hacking playing an FPS game online
“Who the hell is this hacking sonuva b*?! Who’s reyesrjt?!”, yells the guy I killed for the 4th time in a row.
My killing streak made me feel like I’m good at first-person shooting games. Kill after kill after kill. After a while, I got tired of winning. So I left the game to find more “worthy” opponents.
Winning feels empty if you’re not challenged.
Then there was this guy I used to work with who also plays the game.
We talk about it to pass the time during our graveyard shift at work. He’d talk about it as if he knew a lot. This made me wanna find out how good he really is. I wondered, “Maybe he is all talk? How about we put that assumption to the test?”
But boy, that one time I played with him, was humbling.
The moment we see each other (in the game), boom!! Headshot. It took him less than 2 seconds to kill me. At first, I thought it was a fluke. But I was wrong! It was headshot after headshot after headshot. He was god-like!
“What the…!! How?! It can’t be!! You must be hacking!!”, I thought as I slammed my mouse on the desk because I could not kill him. That’s when the realization kicked in!
I accused him of hacking because whatever I knew about him didn’t add up: He plays Counter-Strike. He works with me.
That’s all I knew before our one-on-one battle.
If I hadn’t been too quick to judge and taken more time to learn about his experience (as a player), I wouldn’t be as surprised as I was. Every piece of information matters because each one can change your overall assessment. His skills are just on a different level than mine. There I was thinking I was good, when in reality, I’m just average.
I complimented him for his god-like skills in the game. It reminded me of this player whom I respected because he was super good, but after getting praised by another player, he responded with a diss:
“Nah bro, I’m not good, you just suck!”
Man…I suck lol.
Accusations feel more authentic because they’re a lot harder to fake
Most people are nice. They’re unlikely to say something bad to your face. Nobody wants to look bad (either to you or to themselves). Therefore, if I wanted an accurate assessment, then I would have to look at the negative criticisms. Why?
They are not meant to make you feel good, but rather, they give you a set of data that would balance out the compliments. Now, this isn’t to say you should dismiss positive feedback. Dismissing them is the same as ignoring the reality as well.
Combining both compliments and negative criticisms gives you a more accurate assessment of how good you really are.
