It’s that the key to everything is ensuring it’s ‘high’.
In fact, it’s better to make it 3D…
What on earth…?
Let me explain…
I specialise in training and therapy for ‘high-achieving professionals’. I used to be one myself.
Oxbridge law, City Law Firm etc yada yada yada
Do you think all those people have wonderful self-esteem? No.
What I’ve realised (through painful experience) is that true, solid self-esteem is not built through excelling in a highly specialised, highly intellectual, rarefied and often slightly intangible (come on, who really understands bonds and equities?) area.
That’s like building a very very tall, yet very very skinny, big fancy shiny tower block.
No, true self-esteem is built through acquiring a variety of different skills in a variety of different areas. That stretch and tax all of your different chops, both intellectual and practical.
Like building a lovely, big, chunky, wide house. With a big bottom (no sniggering at the back, please).
Sure, it’s part of the nature of the world of high-level professional services these days that we become highly specialised at an early stage.
Don’t get me wrong – we can achieve great things as a specialist!
But we have to be careful to continue to exercise our other muscles – whether that’s through DIY, house-building, embroidery, pottery, whatever takes your fancy.
Because if we know that we can achieve great things in our area of choice but we don’t know how to change a tyre or park a car then our self-esteem will be precarious as hell.
And all the fancy awards in the world won’t change that.
That’s why this year I’ve been inspired to take a DIY course.
Because I’m comfortable in the intellectual and the therapeutic worlds. I can speak to lots of people in big posh lecture halls without (much) fear.
But when it comes to the practical it can be a different story. Constructing flatpack furniture. Or reversing a car into a tight spot. That’s when I tend to wibble a bit.
What are your blind spots? And how will you keep challenging yourself on them?
And as proof of my newfound DIY mastery, here’s our little girl wandering around Halfords with me.