The fact that “How we undervalue ourselves Part 1” is the most listened to of all my podcasts is an indication that many of us fall into the trap of undervaluing ourselves. I'm a big believer that much of undervaluing ourselves comes from overthinking and believing that other people think more about us than they actually do! Athletes are often very aware of who is watching them and get distracted when the reality is that more often than not the people watching are only vaguely interested and thinking about or discussing other things. We undervalue ourselves when we think others are judging us and zeroing in on all our mistakes when very often, they are equally worried about how we are judging them.

A good step forward is to stop overthinking and overestimating how much you feature in other people’s thoughts. It is invariably less than you imagine.

Often in a crisis when we really have to act such as if we see a kid fall into a swimming pool or someone in trouble, we immediately go into action and without thought, go and help them and invariably do a very good job. Parents and especially mothers fret over how well they are doing with their kids and forget that young children live in the present and most upset is quickly forgotten and that if the environment is full of love, that is enough and they don’t register our imperfections until much older when we can discuss our actions with them.

In areas of life where we are very capable, especially when we get into a flow state, operating on auto pilot, and love what we are doing we can accomplish really good stuff. However, a throw away comment or criticism by someone else, can cause doubt and fear that we are not good enough to creep in and crazily the comment can come from people we don’t respect or not qualified to pass judgement and still we take it to heart.

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