Powerless, Un-confident, and Afraid? It’s ok, we have all been there.
First, I would like to say Congratulations! Making it into an architecture program (especially the best in your country!) is something to be proud of. You should be happy, and excited for the journey that is ahead of you. The work you have already done to get where you are now, even though it seems small in the grand scheme of things, is a victory worth celebrating. So do not be afraid to be proud of yourself.
As your summer grows shorter and it is time for school to begin, these feelings of doubt you are having are completely normal. It is easy to think you are inadequate when starting something new. Trust me, we all feel insecure about our abilities at some point. Even people you idolize, and people who boldly state their confidence, experience the same doubts you are going through right now. Doubt is hard-wired into human existence and your success will be determined by your reaction to these emotions.
If there is any advise I can give you it is this:
You have more potential than you think you do, but with any of us who are super critical of ourselves, we interfere with that potential more than we would like to admit.
There is an amazing concept I learned about a few years ago called “The Inner Game”. There are many concepts rolled into this, but something I think will help you with your situation is this equation:
Performance = potential - interference
As you make your way through school, you will be introduce to a wide range of interference. You have to be able to reduce interference, such as self doubt, and focus on things that are tangible, such as putting pen to paper. It is important to worry less about what other people think and focus on more important things, like having clear goals and accomplishing them step by step.
There is a great quote from Will Smith that I reference often when I think something is too challenging:
"You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that’s ever been built.’ You don’t start there. You say, ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall."
Understand that your current set of skills will only grow with experience; and that you are always going to be challenged with inner and outer obstacles. Most of us focus so heavily on the “OUTER” obstacles:
- Afraid to compete with other people who are better than us
- Afraid we won’t make it to the end
- Afraid our career won’t be successful
That we forget about the inner obstacles. The largest being:
“I don’t believe in myself.”
You have to be more confident in yourself, and the most efficient way to do this is to simply allow yourself to fail. It is ok not to be the best in your class. As long as you are always growing, learning, and piecing together your greatness day by day, you will see yourself grow over time, and you might even notice your work being featured more and more over the other people in your class you always thought were “better than you”.
This reminds me of another favorite quote of mine from Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto:
"Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day."
What you are about to go through is a process. LEARNING is a key element of your growth, and you have to want to learn and get better. Don’t rely on cheerleading. If I waited around for someone to tell me I was good or not, I wouldn’t get anywhere because most of the time, the loudest mouths only spit critiques, not praises.
You have to make your own way and find your own inspiration. Try to have a “GO-TO” place for things that inspire you. I would make a document, or folder on your computer, or a blog where you keep things that get you motivated.
Here is my personal blog where I post random things that get me hyped to succeed:
and here are some of my favorite things that get me motivated:
Eric Thomas | The Secrets to Success
Will Smith | Talent vs Skill
Morgan Freeman | Oprah’s Master Class
Robert Kiyosaki | Rich Dad Poor Dad
Barry Green | The Inner Game of Music (Self 1 and 2)
Bruce Mau | Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
Sir Ken Robinson | Changing Paradigms
Steve Johnson | Where Good Ideas Come From
Creative Something | Rules of a Creator
PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT PART, IT IS IMPORTANT.
“I’m also afraid my career won’t be successful, especially because I’m a girl.”
YOU are a PERSON. With hopes and dreams and aspirations and agendas and will power and fight and talent and fears and nothing makes you any more or less of a person than who you are on the inside.
I know the statistics, I know different countries have different ethical views, I know that sexism is a very REAL thing, but hearing you say that your career won’t be successful because you’re a girl breaks my heart. Either you believe that you, as a girl, are not capable of doing as well as a man in this profession, or you are repeating something you heard someone else say about the percentage of women in the job market or how women do not get paid as well as men, but please know that your sex does not determine your ability or success.
I cannot pretend to know what it is like to be a girl in the field, and I know that you cannot control politics, or the way other people think, but what you can control is yourself. Something I always tell my private students is this:
“Be so good at what you do, that they have no choice.”
{ but to hire you . but to promote you . but to praise you }
Please know that you are no different than anyone else, regardless of race, sex, nation, or creed and you have the power to be as amazing as the people you idolize. Everyone comes into the world the same way. And through a mixture of circumstance, natural talent, and work ethic, you become who you are.
How you interact with your personal circumstances is another very real attribute to your success.
I will be completely honest with you, the people who will doubt you the most and tell you that you are not good enough will probably be the people closest to you, like your family and friends.
Everyone who cares about you wants to keep you free from vulnerability, and in turn, will try to persuade you from taking risks or doing anything where they see you might get hurt. It is not their fault, they just don’t want you to go through any pain. But on the other side of pain is success. You are going to have to go through failure to succeed. Take what people tell you with a grain of salt and just keep going.
[[[ And what about the REAL HATERS?? ]]]
You will also have people who are not your friends trying to bring you down as well. But you know what…
Learn from them. Let them be angry. Let them be jealous. Let them talk about you behind your back. Let them hate.
We all have faults. Some of us can’t draw straight lines, Some of us just have bad character traits, but nothing is set in stone. The most terrible people could be the nicest, most uplifting people years later, the worst, most UN-artistic person could become the next Van Gogh. History has proven the story of the “ugly duckling” time and time again. So just know that while your doubt is understandable, you never truly know how well you will do at something until you do it.
I’m not going to sugarcoat anything though. You are going to make a lot of mistakes, you will get harsh remarks about things you were proud of, and you are going to cry. Maybe just once, maybe a bunch, but never cry to quit, cry to keep going. Because aside from all of the inevitable obstacles that are in your future, the only thing that can truly hold you back is yourself.
Don’t forget why you dreamed of being an architect in the first place.
Let the essence of that idea keep you motivated and don’t allow your fear of failure to cripple your passion. Because without trying and failing, over and over and over again for yourself, you are in no position to judge what you can accomplish. You can only hope for the best as you jump head first into the future, and if you fall, just get back up, dust yourself off, and keep going.
As long as you are always trying to be better then you were yesterday you will be just fine.
- Mark Perrett, tipsforarchitectureschool
