Every situation has a silver lining – discover a mindset that heals and enlightens.
December 14, 2021 · 7 min read
Problems are not stop signs; they are guidelines. ~ -Robert Schuller
“What happened to me? Why am I bad at everything I do?”
“Why there isn’t at least a single thing I could be good at?”
It’s not as easy to find yourself in life. It sometimes feels as if you are a disappointment that can’t do anything right.
Don’t get upset. I will prove to you that you’re not bad at everything.
Why are you bad at everything?
- You believe in your incompetence. How will you ever accomplish your prominent goals if you simply have no faith in that?
All of the inner strength comes from within. You should never count on someone else to help you push ahead in life. It’s just simply not the best way to face your difficulties.
Instead, start positive talk with yourself. Make yourself believe into your unstoppable power. It’s not far from reality, because you actually are capable of everything. All you need to do is to start somewhere.
- You have a negative mindset. There is always you can do about a situation. If you instantly give up, you automatically lose the battle with yourself.
It’s not about others or the difficulty of the problem. It’s all about you. You have to conquer fear of the unknown and make the most out of it.
In this modern world you can always have the access to almost every source of information. All you have to do is to use it and put it to work.
If you want to live a happier life, you need to start thinking positively and to look for new opportunities.
- You confirm your doubts through various sources. There can be many sources that you can look into: your past, Internet search, opinions of people…
If you really look for information that would confirm your thoughts, it’s very likely that you will find it. Internet is abundant with a lot of personal opinions.
It doesn’t mean that you should take everything as a matter of fact. You need to filter the information instead.
The more you believe in your doubts, the harder it will become to get out of this loop. Your words and beliefs about yourself have an incredible influence on your actions.
Instead of negative intentions, go for positive intentions. Brighten up your day and confirm your strengths instead of doubts.
12 Reasons why you’re not bad at everything
1. You try to rush things
I completely understand that everyone wants fast results, including me. However, how reliable is that? How sustainable is it? Will the outcome be just like I wanted in the first place?
One of the biggest self-image problems is that the world is very competitive in this modern age. It might make you believe into thinking that you’re not good at anything and talentless. Only people that have the most perseverance make it to the top.
Almost every skill requires a lot of time to master it. Just because you were unsuccessful in one of your life areas, doesn’t mean that you’re bad at everything.
It means that you should put more effort into it, even though you think you’ve already put a lot.
You need to work more than 100 hours to see some positive changes. To completely master a skill, it might take thousands of hours of hard, focused work.
2. You haven’t found what you’re good at
The first question to ask yourself is “how many things have I tried in my life?”
For example, if you believe you are not musically gifted, it doesn’t mean that you’re bad at it. It simply means you haven’t found in what sub-niche you’re good at.
Success isn't permanent and failure isn't fatal; it's the courage to continue that counts. ~ Mike Ditka
If your singing voice isn’t that great (it can be improved though!), you can still be good at playing a guitar, piano, saxophone, or any other instrument.
You have to stick to whatever you are doing for a longer period of time.
You need to give yourself some time to see how fast you improve in your area. The more persevere you are, the more likely you will succeed.
3. You have a curious nature
If you’re curious about what is happening around you, it means that you have chances to be good at something.
What are you interested about? Perhaps you’re interested about social media, which means you could be good at web developing, search engine optimization, video filming, photography, or be an influencer yourself.
Take a look at this video how to be successful at anything you do:
There are endless of possibilities what you could excel at. That’s why you can’t tell yourself that you’re bad at everything.
As long as you’re interested in something (even talking or thinking about life in general!), you must be good at something.
Perhaps you’ve went through a lot of hardships in your life and could share your story with others. That would definitely inspire and make others aware how to behave better in those situations.
4. You always try to improve
If you’re always looking for ways to improve, you are not bad at everything. It means you know the value of self-development.
Heck, the fact that you’ve encountered this article already proves that you’re looking for ways to become a better person!
You make mistakes. Mistakes don't make you. ~ Maxwell Maltz
If you will be blaming environment instead of trying to improve yourself, that will surely set you to be bad at everything.
People that look for excuses and have victim mindset will always suck at everything they do. There’s no doubt on that.
The most important thing you can do is to never stop improving yourself. That’s the key to a successful and happy life.
5. You don’t give yourself a break
The more you put strain on yourself, the unhappier you will become with yourself. You will start drowning in negative thoughts.
The problem is that everyone wants overnight results. That’s understandable, though. Most of us would like to skip the school part and working our regular jobs. Everyone would like to enjoy their life and do what they love instead.
Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. You have to work step by step and track your gradual results. You’re not bad at everything. You are simply trying to meet up with your surreal expectations.
6. You try to meet up to everyone else’s expectations
Have you ever been pressured to do something that you don’t like?
All of us were in one or another way. What we actually don’t see is that we subconsciously try to pressure ourselves into being accepted by society or someone else’s expectations.
Perhaps your family wanted or wants you to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer? But what if you want to be free and have your small business instead?
When we are forced to do something, we are left unhappy and empty. We accept the fact that it’s ‘the right way to live’.
This occurrence trying to meet someone else’s expectations moves us away from our true identity [1]. It’s no wonder that you believe that you’re bad at everything.
When you’re being forced to do something you don’t like, you will never feel natural and good in that area.
If you focus on what interests you, it’s very likely that you’re going to be fine and successful in what you’re doing.
7. You don’t think clearly
Life is unfair. I wish that it would be different…
When you’re in a bad state of mind, you always stress yourself out with negative thoughts. You make everything more complicated than it should be.
The secret sauce to the solution is breaking down a problem into small chunks. Do you want to write a long book but are intimidated by the amount of work? Try writing a small chapter everyday instead.
The more structured your plan is, the more likely you will succeed. You are not bad at everything. All you need to do is to take a simpler glance at the problem.
8. Life is harder than you think it is
We all see on social media how great people live. When we speak to our friends, they boast how good their lives are.
But the reality is completely different. People worked hard to achieve what they have now. Their skills have been acquired through patience and perseverance.
Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. ~ Lance Armstrong
Of course, some people are simply privileged with inborn talents or have a lot of money in the first place to get what they want. Regardless of that, people have to fight for their dreams and make every sweat drop count.
Look, it doesn’t come easy. Don’t look at the privileged ones. Don’t worry about the things you can’t change.
Work on yourself and be persevere about everything you do. Eventually the results will come.
9. You need emotional break
You’re simply emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. No wonder that you think you’re bad at everything. People have limits on how much stress they can handle.
If you are experiencing:
- Inability to focus.
- Negative overthinking.
- Anxiety, stress, or depression.
- Lack of energy.
- No inner motivation.
- Lack of sleep.
… It means that you’re too emotionally overwhelmed and you need to readjust your emotional state.
Take a slower pace and take care of yourself. Simply relax for a few days to regain your focus and ability to think clearly. You aren’t bad at everything, you are only too stressed out.
10. You don’t trust yourself enough
When you don’t believe in yourself, you will start collapsing. It’s like a building without a foundation. Eventually it will break down.
To avoid it, you must consider stepping up and holding your chin higher. When you are thinking “Why am I bad at everything?”, you automatically put yourself in a position of a failure.
To trust yourself more, you need to do this:
- Accept how you feel. You have to understand deeply how you feel. There are no “weak” feelings. Every feeling is essential for our personal development.
- Make inner critic your friend. You need to set boundaries with your inner critic that’s within your mind. It is actually helpful if you can control it. Make it work for you.
- Switch up your behavior. Instead of mindlessly scrolling social feed, consider doing an activity that would prove your self-worth. For example, you can try fixing something, cooking something new, starting to learn a new skill.
11. You’re still holding on the past
Just because you’ve failed once or a few times, it doesn’t make you a failure and bad at everything. Learning is a natural process.
That’s why there are experts and newcomers. Nobody starts doing astonishing projects instantly.
The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down. ~ Stephen Richards
If you’re holding on someone else’s words that you are a failure and you’re terrible at everything you do, learn to move on. There are a lot of mean people whose only way to prove their ego is to make someone else feel bad.
Another person’s opinion about you mean nothing. All that matters is your grit – the ability to always work past your failures and never stop doing what’s important for you.
12. You’re surrounded by negative people
Negative people are energy vampires. And when you don’t have energy, you start believing that you’re bad at everything you do.
These environments are toxic and make us have negative thoughts. I surely know that feeling. I’ve gone to my soul sucking corporate job and hated every minute working there. It seems that every second person (more than 50 percent of people) is unhappy with his job [2].
What these environments do is persuade that we are bad at everything. We always try to fulfill the expectations of our managers that are getting higher and higher every time.
If you don’t have a lot of self-esteem, you will start believing that you’re not good at what you do. When in fact, you might be doing a great job. The problem is that nobody takes a break to reward you and tell what an awesome task you’ve done.
Final Words From Delightful Mindset
All in all, if you think that “why am I bad at everything?”, the answer lies within you.
First, it’s impossible to bad at everything. There must be something that you’re good at.
Secondly, you need to put a lot of hard, focused work into whatever you’re doing. You can’t give up after trying for a couple hours. Big achievements don’t come easily.
Lastly, the most important thing is to believe in yourself that you’re capable of everything. Don’t let other people put you down. You can achieve whatever you want.
- BICCHIERI, C., MULDOON, R. and SONTUOSO, A. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy E.N. ZALTA ed., Winter 2018 ed. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018 [cited Dec 14, 2021].Social Norms. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/social-norms/
- Forbes. J. KELLY.More than Half of U.S. Workers are Unhappy in their Jobs: Here’s Why and what Needs to be done Now. [viewed Dec 14, 2021]. Available from:https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/25/more-than-half-of-us-workers-are-unhappy-in-their-jobs-heres-why-and-what-needs-to-be-done-now/