“I’m not an artist” and other lies

We often use self-limiting language without realizing we’re doing it. These phrases, over time, can shape the way we see ourselves and the way others see us.

What are some of the lies we tell ourselves?

Painting and photo by me

“I’m bad at…”

I recently spoke with a woman who is a PhD, a research psychologist and a professor of Psychology. She offhandedly told me she is “bad at math”. I was surprised that someone could earn a PhD while being “bad at math”. I asked why she would attach that label to herself. She shared some background on the struggles she had throughout her 24 years of schooling, being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and finding help and support along the way to enable her to complete the math courses needed to earn her degrees.

Labeling ourselves as “bad” in any context is…well, bad. The word itself has only negative connotation (with some notable exceptions found here). Anything that starts with “I am” describes a state of being. Even when we use the words flippantly, those messages stick in our brain and can subtly diminish our sense of worth.

The label also serves as a brand that others see and generally don’t question. If I tell you I’m a bad cook (I’m not), you don’t need to see evidence of my lack of culinary skill – you take it at face value. That then becomes your experience of me and the label sticks.

Claiming to be bad at something can also be a way of letting ourselves off the hook without giving it an effort. When my daughter was in seventh grade, she declared herself “bad at math” and accepted her poor grades as inevitable. I asked if she had done her best. She started to say yes, and realized it wasn’t true. She found math challenging and didn’t like it much, so she hadn’t put in the effort. Once she tried, her grade improved. She still didn’t like math, but she found satisfaction in being able to exceed her own expectation.

As I talked to my PhD friend, I invited her to reframe her statement from “I’m bad at math” to “math is challenging for me.” Changing the language changes the perspective. Rather than framing the apparent deficit it as a state of being within ourselves, we can frame it as a characteristic of the external challenge, which we can then choose to address…or not.

“I’m not…”

As a child, I loved paint-by-numbers. Couldn’t get enough. We had 8x10” paintings of horses, clowns, little girls with big eyes propped up all around my room and in various corners of the house. Occasionally I would try to create an original painting, but could never manage to get the image in my head to appear on the canvas. As I grew into adulthood, I found myself envious of people who could draw or paint or sculpt without a pattern to follow. “I’m not creative”, I declared. “I’m not an artist.”

Through my coach training I met an amazing artist, Marianne Gargour, who incorporates art into her coaching (and coaching into her art). She recently hosted a 3-day creativity workshop which I attended mostly to support her, again telling myself “I’m not an artist.” Her simple exercises unlocked something in me. I signed up for a 4-week painting class and now have about a dozen of my own painting strewn around my office. One of my favorites is above. The big shift was choosing to not focus on the outcome but to enjoy the process (more on that here). For all of the years that I avoided any kind of creative endeavor, instead of “I’m not an artist” I could have said “I haven’t yet uncovered the path to my creativity.”

“I can’t…”

Similar to “I’m bad at”, we love to talk about the things we can’t do. While the “bad” label typically refers to a skill or competency, “I can’t” often relates to achieving a desired outcome. I can’t get organized. I can’t lose the weight. I can’t finish a book. When we’re saying “I can’t” we usually mean “I haven’t made it a priority” or “I haven’t yet figure out how”.

My grandmother had a lot of sayings. One of her favorites was “can’t means won’t”. I didn’t understand that as a child. I thought it implied willfulness or laziness (which, frankly, it often did). My mother’s version of that saying was a little more encouraging: “what have you tried?” That question introduced a sense of accountability and was an invitation to problem solving. Another great question when faced with a declaration of “I can’t”: what can you do? That makes room for possibility, rather than closing the door on success.

An invitation to reframe

Instead of “I’m bad at…”, how about

“I find it challenging to…”

“I haven’t yet mastered…”

“I’m still working on…”

Rather than “I’m not…”, maybe try

“I haven’t yet uncovered…”

“I’ve never seen myself as…”

“I haven’t figure out how to be…”

When you start to say “I can’t…”, think about changing it to

“I don’t yet have a plan to…”

“I haven’t yet prioritized…”

“I can…”

I invite you to start making different choices in the language you use and challenging others to do the same. Then pay attention to the possibilities that emerge.

A Brewer’s Wisdom

“He is a wise man who invented beer.”

~ Plato

My husband and I are homebrewers.

We make beer, serve it to our friends, drink it ourselves and enter homebrew competitions. Sometimes we win, more often we don’t. The real joy is in the process of brewing, sharing what we make with other beer lovers, getting feedback and making it better. Here are some life lessons from the perspective of a brewer.

(N.B. “We” really means “he” …I design recipes, sometimes hang out while he’s crafting them, and take credit for a lot of it, but Jim is the brewer.)

Enjoy the process.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the outcome of our efforts that we forget to enjoy the process. The first time we brewed, it was sort of a disaster. The wort boiled over on the stove. We realized too late that a fair amount of ice is needed to cool it down rapidly. The end product tasted vaguely like dirty socks. It was fantastic! We had done a lot of things wrong, but we had something that resembled beer, and enough lessons learned that we did better the next time. And most importantly, we had fun. We had discovered a hobby we could enjoy together.

The quality of our beer progressed from bad to mediocre and finally we were confident enough to serve it to someone other than ourselves. He not only drank it, he asked for another. That memory still gives me goosebumps!

Fourteen years and many batches later, we have graduated from kits to recipes, from extract to all-grain, from bottles to kegs and we continue to enjoy the process. The quality keeps improving and sometimes we miss the mark completely. There are tons of great craft beers you can buy off the shelf – homemade beer is a labor of love.

What are the things you do for the sheer joy of it? How often do you take time to enjoy the process?

Savor the feedback.

Our track record in competitions isn’t shabby. The very first sanctioned competition we entered (i.e. one that is conducted according to the rules of the Beer Judge Certification Program) we won Best of Show. We’ve been selected to brew at professional craft breweries and one year were crowned King and Queen of the Hive by our local homebrew club based on the number of competition points we earned.

Winning is fun. Usually there are medals and sometimes prizes. But the best thing to come out of these competitions is the feedback from certified judges that tells us specifically where the beer is correct (i.e. aligns with the standard for the style) and where it can be improved. Each scoresheet we receive gives us more insight into how we can get better. It’s sometimes tough to hear but is always offered with goodwill by someone who appreciates the time, energy and effort that has gone into the brew.

The feedback doesn’t need to come from experts. A few years ago we made a keg for a friend’s party. It was served alongside a couple of commercial craft beers and it was the first one to kick. That people not only drank our beer but drank all of it was among the best feedback we’ve gotten. Our good friends – most of whom know beer but aren’t certified – will always tell us what they think. Those conversations can spark tweaks to recipes or new recipes altogether. Or, we might look at the feedback and say, nah, we like it the way it is.

How do you receive feedback? Are you looking only for the medal, or do you seek the input that will help you to become better? Do you go into react-and-fix mode, or do you examine the feedback for relevance to your goals? Here is a great Harvard Business Review article on receiving feedback.

Find your people.

Our social life is very beer-centric. We belong to two brew clubs: Brewers United for Zany Zymurgy (BUZZ) is officially recognized by the American Homebrewers Association. We have monthly meetings with specific educational topics. Many of our members are certified judges and we are always learning from each other. Our other club, LCD Brewing, is somewhat less formal. It’s a bunch of guys who like to brew and started doing it together years ago. There’s a lot of sharing of ideas, feedback and beer. There are t-shirts. It’s more like a social club that also brews. This group has become like family. Most of the close friendships I have made throughout my life have been situational – we met at school or at work and formed a genuine bond. My LCD family has blossomed from a common interest, a loose set of traditions and a set of shared experiences across many stages of our lives.

Who are your people? How did you meet them? If you’re looking for connection, I invite you to identify the things you’re passionate about and find others who share your passion.

Experiment and make it your own.

I’m one of the leaders of the BUZZ Homebrew Club. We call ourselves the Primary Fermenters (it’s a brewing pun – look it up). Now that our monthly meetings are virtual, I serve as host (i.e. I am the one with the Zoom account that allows 20+ of us to talk about beer for 2-3 hours at a stretch). The virtual sessions actually allow us to more varied topics and guests.

In our meeting this month we had one of the brewers from Free Will Brewing, Nate Walter, join us to talk about his brewing process. He is a Saison expert and is passionate about the possibilities that a Saison offers. He talked about foraging for flowers and plants that he could throw into his barrel and focused as much on the art of brewing as the science. When some of our members were pressing him for specific insight into how to make a perfect Saison, he pushed back and said that in the age of technology, we are too focused on looking to others for guidance. His advice (paraphrased): Figure out what you want to make, try it, mess it up and try it again. Dump it out if you need to. Experiment. Keep making changes until you get the result you want. Do what works for you and have fun doing it. Own it.

How often do you look to someone else to see how it’s done? When was the last time you experimented? Are you willing to dump it if you don’t like it (or drink it if it’s just ok) and try again next time? What would be possible if you truly own it?

Find your wisdom.

Think about your hobbies and interests. What about them is appealing to you? I invite you to examine the things you’re passionate about and see how they might have relevance for the other parts of your life and your work.  

And remember…life’s too short to drink crappy beer!

Scaffolding

Sometimes we need something that’s just out of reach. With a little bit of help, we can get to it.

To reach higher and make sustainable change, we need more support.

Scaffolding is used in construction to lift workers to heights that otherwise couldn’t be safely reached and enable them to do work for a sustained period. When the work is done, the scaffolding is moved aside. Sometimes a ladder will do; sometimes just someone with longer arms.

The term “scaffolding” is used in learning theory to describe a process where more support is provided when a concept or skill is first introduced, then the support is reduced and moved to a new focus, with each stage building on the one before.

So how do we find the right amount of lift at the right time in our work and in our lives?

Someone a little taller

If I need a glass from the top shelf and it’s just a little out of reach, I’ll ask my husband to grab it.

Sometimes if a friend or colleague has easy access to something we need, it’s ok to just ask. Maybe it’s an article you know they have handy to save you the trouble of Googling it. Maybe it’s borrowing a pen or sending notes from a meeting you missed. Small act, easy to do. But if you’re having to ask for the same small favor over and over again, maybe something needs to change. If I need my husband to get me a glass every time I want a drink, I should probably rearrange my cabinets.

A leg up

Sometimes, when that first step is a little much, what we need is a leg up. Like getting on a horse. Full disclosure: I haven’t been on a horse in over 40 years, but I know I stepped in someone’s cupped hands to get my foot in the stirrup. A quick bit of help, but when it was done, I was elevated to where I wanted to be.

 What are the leg-up situations we face in work and in life? It could be asking a colleague to watch you dry run a big presentation. It could be a pep talk after an argument with a partner. It’s an investment of time and energy, but it’s situational and occasional. Just as the riding instructor doesn’t walk around with cupped hands waiting for me to want to get on the horse, these ad hoc moments of support come and go as they’re needed.

A ladder

If I need to change a lightbulb in the ceiling or hang Christmas lights, I’m not asking for a leg up. It would be unsafe and, uncomfortable and unsustainable. A sturdy ladder that’s the right height is what I need.

What are the ladders that support us in other aspects of our lives? It could be a supportive boss who consistently looks for opportunities to challenge you and provide visibility so you can excel. Or a friend and colleague who shares opportunities and provides helpful feedback without being asked. The opportunity arises, the ladder comes out, I climb a rung or many, and am appreciative of the support.

Scaffolding

So, that leaves us with scaffolding. I’ve never actually been on scaffolding, but my husband who was a painting contractor is an expert. Scaffolding comes in pieces so you can make it the right height and shape to fit the job you need to do. It is both sturdy and flexible. It’s often used for big jobs so is meant to stay in place for a while – you do not want to putting it up and taking it down at the start and end of each day. And when the support is no longer needed, it’s removed.

What’s the scaffolding in our lives? It could be family, close friends, or your personal board of directors. For me, I have a couple of cohorts – my “Betsy’s” (a group of amazing women with whom I shared an intense and transformational leadership development program); my “Cherry Blossoms” (the wonderful humans who I shared my coach training journey with). They are always at the ready, able to reposition and adjust to provide as much support as I need for as long as I need. A professional coach can be scaffolding as well. I provide my clients a safe place to accomplish what they need. I am here for them and they decide when and how I serve them.

Where do you get your lift?

I invite you to think about the times you need help reaching what you want. Who are the long arms, legs up, ladders and scaffolding in your life? Are you making the best use of them and do they know what they mean to you?