Are you feeling worthless?

There was one interesting situation in one of my camps recently, that I thought I have to share!

I usually get a lot of different questions from goalkeepers in every country where I’m working and there are always some new lessons for me as well. Sometimes, those questions are not only about goalkeeping. Very often young athletes struggle with different things connected to self-confidence, self-esteem, self-doubt and acceptance.

One of the questions that I have got recently was from a 15 years old goalkeeper, and I just can’t stop thinking about it, because it was so important and so big!

“What if everything I do is always wrong? What should I do if nothing works out well and I feel completely worthless all the time?”

I thought that sharing this story can inspire someone else who might be struggling with the same issue. Because, NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS – YOU ARE NOT WORTHLESS!

In my opinion – if someone else gives us feedback that something we do is wrong, then that is just good news! Because that can show us on what segment of our life (training, school or anything else) we need to work more! That is a good news because by working more on it, even if failing while doing it – we will eventually become better!

We should never ever get caught in a thought of being worthless just because we have failed or did something wrong! Even if we did it in a wrong way several times in row… That does not define us as long as we are willing to improve and to work on it!

Don’t be afraid of not being good enough yet! It takes a lot of strength and willingness to accept that you are not yet good enough! But you can decide to take it as an opportunity to Grow, an opportunity to Learn, an opportunity to BECOME BETTER!

The real strength is in not being afraid to make several mistakes while trying to do better! So, please, do not be afraid that you are not yet great! Just keep trying your best and believe in yourself!

From the other side, if you catch yourself in that negative thought circle of feeling worthless and if you focus on it fully – it will take you only deeper in that direction. It will be hard to focus on anything positive or good. So you need to try to re-focus from the negative thoughts pattern slowly towards better feeling thoughts, step by step.

The great thing is – you can choose what to focus on, so you just need to become more aware and more careful about that choice! Just find something you like and appreciate about yourself and focus on that!

The only story you should listen to is the story you tell to yourself, so be careful what kind of story you will choose!

Remember – what ever you repeat to yourself – you are going to become that!
If you repeat something empowering, you will start to feel more empowered and eventually you will become empowered!
If you repeat something self-destructive, you will feel very bad and those negative thoughts will start hurting you (btw, they do feel bad only because they are NOT TRUE!).

And let me tell you one really important thing: if you ever again think that you are worthless, please remember that can’t be truth because the probability of you being born as exactly YOU has been calculated to be at about one in 400 trillion!!!

The odds of you being alive are basically zero!

That’s how small is the probability of you being born at the exact time when you were born to your particular parents, with your specific genetic make-up, to be raised in an environment that you were raised, to become the exact person that you are now.

Simply put, the chances of you existing were so small that the fact you do exist now means YOU ARE A MIRACLE! 

That further means that you were born with a Reason! With a PURPOSE! You were born with your gifts, talents, with an opportunity to learn, improve, Grow and don’t let anyone else to convince you into anything different than that!!!!

As Dr. Ali Binazir wrote once, “A miracle is an event so unlikely as to be almost impossible. Now go forth and feel and act like the miracle that you are.”  <3

YOU ARE UNIQUE!

YOU ARE AMAZING!

YOU ARE STRONG!

If you have a challenge finding anything good in you to focus on, then one of the things that can help you find a reason to feel better is – to do something nice for someone else, help someone with something, do something nice for them, or just give them a compliment.

Negative feelings will go away when you take an action to share kindness, love and goodness with someone else! Just try it and see how it feels! 🙂

Remind yourself more often that you are always enough and that your self-worth is not and should not depend on others’ approval!

Also remind yourself more often that a failure is just one more step forward! Failing is not a bad thing!

Please remember – I BELIEVE IN YOU! 🙂