Checking In On That Little Voice In My Head

CONNECTIONS | by MOLLY MARTIN

THIS PARTICULAR PARADIGM SHIFT hit me some years ago, when I was having problems with my computer at work.

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At first I tried to fix it myself. It’s just a computer, I can do this. One attempt didn’t work, then another. OK, think. I tried a different tack and that didn’t work. By the time I’d exhausted all the possible solutions I could imagine, the little voice in the back of my mind was telling me I was an idiot, why couldn’t I figure it out, now I have to call for help…what a loser!

So Jennifer arrives from tech support and I explain the problem. (With the computer, not the little voice.) She tries the first thing I tried: No luck. Then my next attempt. Nope. The different tack? No go. She duplicated all my efforts, and then of course more of her own. Nothing was helping.

But did she start calling herself an idiot and a loser? No (at least not that I could tell). She cocked her head and calmly said, “Huh. That’s strange.” And then she proceeded to keep trying, and eventually figure it out, never seeming to bring her competency and self esteem into play.

That’s when I understood at least one big difference between people who handle technology well, and those who get intimidated and frustrated by it.

And I wondered how much that applied to everything else in life.