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Executive Education, Personal and Professional development Programmes
Deficit Thinking: Letting go of feeling 'less than'
Bella Enahoro
When we have chemical deficits i.e. our bodies are not producing the required amount of say iron, we can take tablets to 'bump' up the difference and bring ourselves up to working level.
When we have financial deficits, we can draw from other sources to compensate for the shortfall and 'bump' our finances up to working level.
But what happens when we think of ourselves in terms of deficit? What happens when we move through our lives holding the idea that we have personal deficits? i.e. not worthy enough for what we desire, not deserving enough for what we dream of, not educated enough, not tall enough, not attractive enough, not clever enough and the list goes on – fill in your particular deficit. How do we compensate to 'bump' us up to working level? Where in fact to do we get the idea that we are, somehow in some key area, not enough and it matters? What happens to us?
Firstly, immediately our sense of well-being is diminished. We may go through our entire lives grinding along with an impoverished sense of well-being wondering why our lives are not going the way we would have them be. From where do we get this shortage thinking ?
Not unusually the idea is something we've picked up from childhood – someone somewhere told us we were not as 'smart as', 'good-looking as', 'significant as', we don’t 'matter as much as' and we came to believe we had fallen short of the mark. Perhaps we attempted something and didn't get the result we wanted and we were made to feel that we were not 'capable enough' and what were we doing going for that anyway?
The causes are myriad, continuous and insidious – we don't as children question the messages we are getting about ourselves. We simply begin to live them out. They become part of our BS – our belief system. And what's the difference between our belief system and the truth? Our belief system is true only for us, the truth is true for anyone and everyone, it is no respecter of persons.
And when we believe our BS, what happens? What happens if the perceived deficit is a personal attribute that we can't change, develop or get rid of?
We begin to make choices driven by the need to compensate rather than choices emerging from a sense of joy. Our sense of disconnect can take us into painful places, situations and have us gravitate to painful people. When we make choices from a disconnected place, the reality we create for ourselves is going to be very different than the reality we would be creating with a full sense of our worth, value and significance.
Sometimes we get into competition for our sense of worthiness as we try to 'bump up' our sense of value. And if we can't raise our sense of value, then we may get into belittling others, character assassinations, smear campaigns or shutting others down in an attempt to 'level' the playing field.
However, in the long-term these strategies seldom work and create further unwanted conditions of their own.
It's natural that we would want to experience the importance of our place in the world, even though it's different from anyone else's place. And it's important to realise that there is no competition for who has the more important place.
Mostly we just want to be counted as one who matters too but when we look to others for how they feel about us to determine our worth and value in life, or what they think or say about us, we are going to be in trouble – they're not that interested in us plus if they're not that connected to their sense of well-being, they'll give us all kinds of negative feedback.
Our worth, value, importance is intrinsic to us – nothing in the outer world enhances or diminishes that. Only in our thinking and belief system does that happen.
If we step back we can see, it's only a thought and it's thought that does not serve us well.
We do not have to be subject to deficit thinking. We can question the truth of our thinking. Just because we think it, does not mean it's true. It could be a thought we've 'caught' from someone else. Someone who was having a pretty tough time believing well of themselves and decided to share their negating way of thinking and looking at the world with us.
But if we 'stand back' far enough we can see the error in such thoughts. We can then unleash our capabilities and talents into the world. Both for us to enjoy giving and the world to enjoy receiving.
Deficit thinking need to govern our lives or possibilities. There's nothing inevitable about it. It's simply a habit we've picked up and like all habits can be changed.
As simply as letting the thought go.
Copyright ©Bella Enahoro Aug 2012
For more articles go to more
When we have financial deficits, we can draw from other sources to compensate for the shortfall and 'bump' our finances up to working level.
But what happens when we think of ourselves in terms of deficit? What happens when we move through our lives holding the idea that we have personal deficits? i.e. not worthy enough for what we desire, not deserving enough for what we dream of, not educated enough, not tall enough, not attractive enough, not clever enough and the list goes on – fill in your particular deficit. How do we compensate to 'bump' us up to working level? Where in fact to do we get the idea that we are, somehow in some key area, not enough and it matters? What happens to us?
Firstly, immediately our sense of well-being is diminished. We may go through our entire lives grinding along with an impoverished sense of well-being wondering why our lives are not going the way we would have them be. From where do we get this shortage thinking ?
Not unusually the idea is something we've picked up from childhood – someone somewhere told us we were not as 'smart as', 'good-looking as', 'significant as', we don’t 'matter as much as' and we came to believe we had fallen short of the mark. Perhaps we attempted something and didn't get the result we wanted and we were made to feel that we were not 'capable enough' and what were we doing going for that anyway?
The causes are myriad, continuous and insidious – we don't as children question the messages we are getting about ourselves. We simply begin to live them out. They become part of our BS – our belief system. And what's the difference between our belief system and the truth? Our belief system is true only for us, the truth is true for anyone and everyone, it is no respecter of persons.
And when we believe our BS, what happens? What happens if the perceived deficit is a personal attribute that we can't change, develop or get rid of?
We begin to make choices driven by the need to compensate rather than choices emerging from a sense of joy. Our sense of disconnect can take us into painful places, situations and have us gravitate to painful people. When we make choices from a disconnected place, the reality we create for ourselves is going to be very different than the reality we would be creating with a full sense of our worth, value and significance.
Sometimes we get into competition for our sense of worthiness as we try to 'bump up' our sense of value. And if we can't raise our sense of value, then we may get into belittling others, character assassinations, smear campaigns or shutting others down in an attempt to 'level' the playing field.
However, in the long-term these strategies seldom work and create further unwanted conditions of their own.
It's natural that we would want to experience the importance of our place in the world, even though it's different from anyone else's place. And it's important to realise that there is no competition for who has the more important place.
Mostly we just want to be counted as one who matters too but when we look to others for how they feel about us to determine our worth and value in life, or what they think or say about us, we are going to be in trouble – they're not that interested in us plus if they're not that connected to their sense of well-being, they'll give us all kinds of negative feedback.
Our worth, value, importance is intrinsic to us – nothing in the outer world enhances or diminishes that. Only in our thinking and belief system does that happen.
If we step back we can see, it's only a thought and it's thought that does not serve us well.
We do not have to be subject to deficit thinking. We can question the truth of our thinking. Just because we think it, does not mean it's true. It could be a thought we've 'caught' from someone else. Someone who was having a pretty tough time believing well of themselves and decided to share their negating way of thinking and looking at the world with us.
But if we 'stand back' far enough we can see the error in such thoughts. We can then unleash our capabilities and talents into the world. Both for us to enjoy giving and the world to enjoy receiving.
Deficit thinking need to govern our lives or possibilities. There's nothing inevitable about it. It's simply a habit we've picked up and like all habits can be changed.
As simply as letting the thought go.
Copyright ©Bella Enahoro Aug 2012
For more articles go to more
