You would think I was tired of introspection by now

I'm usually pretty hard on myself - I'm actually pretty proud of how I've generally conducted myself over the years, and there's nothing I outright regret doing, because I generally have always tried to do the right thing. I won't go into whether the outcome of these was ultimately good or if I would change things, but what I want to talk (or write) about is how I often punish myself mentally for not being what I considered good enough.

I never really congratulate or pride myself on the work I've done or what I accomplish. It may be the gifted kid syndrome again, but I think it's more of knowing I definitely could have done more - even this past week, I've been lazy countless times, preferring to defer work I know I need to do to a later time. The point here is related to what I wrote about yesterday, though - I haven't really felt like it was a failure in the last few weeks.

It's weird - I can relate this to how I was when I was in my late teens. I was consistently going to the gym 5-6 days a week, and although I immediately feel like qualifying that accomplishment by enumerating the various ways that made it less impressive, it was still a very big accomplishment for a 17 year old. I never really acknowledged that to anyone, because ultimately the reason I don't want to is because (I think) I'm scared people will put me down. I feel like most of the time when I tell someone something I did that I'm proud of, they either don't care or don't understand enough to care. This obviously was more prevalent in my younger years, when my parents were still growing up themselves and weren't the best to me, but it does suck to face. I know that what I do matters, and a part of why I know that is of course because of my wonderful partner and the people I have grown to know that appreciate me over the years.

I still have that fear inside me though. I think writing these out has helped externalise these thoughts that I've been having for probably 13 years at this point. I might even go to therapy about it. Regardless, I think of note is the fact that this has significantly decreased in the last few weeks, as I mentioned. I set goals for myself that were tiny and very achievable, and made sure to not only make sure I met them every day, but also didn't beat myself up when I didn't.

Full credit to neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff here for her book Tiny Experiments - I have never read it, but its influence has spread enough that intermediary writers have beamed the concept of treating your life as a series of experiments into my brain. I have unconsciously shifted to viewing myself as a test subject, but also a researcher, at the start of this year, and it has been transformative for my self-confidence. If I fail at something, well that means the hypothesis, methodology, or conditions were to blame - NOT me. It just means we go again. I think that's why I like saying I'll see you tomorrow - that's my hypothesis, and I'll try damn well to prove it. If I can't? Well, we didn't get here as a society by succeeding - we did it by failing, and trying again.

That's not to say I won't see you tomorrow though, because I will :)