Conquering Questioning

Conquering Questioning

Recently I was invited to apply to a scholarship program, it’s a new and exciting opportunity to attend a prestigious university here in NY. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try and so I worked hard on my application. Last week I was contacted to come in for the first interview and this morning I had that interview. I used my Conquering Life tools to keep anxiety and nerves in check and made sure I had a solid night’s sleep. The interview went well, I was calm and collected and delivered my answers with decisiveness and I left the room feeling like I had presented myself to the best of my capacities. Stepping out of the university, however, I was greeted by rising panic and I realized I wasn’t sure if I was more terrified of getting into the program or being rejected from it.

This scholarship wasn’t just testing my academic abilities but also, although unconsciously, my self esteem. I came back to that question that hasn’t haunted me for a long time, “Am I good enough?” With that umbrella question in came all the other questions that pour in with it, what if somehow I fooled them into believing I was clever enough? What if I’ve just been lucky so far? What if, what if, what if! I brought down a Conquering Life dam onto the flow and staunched the incoming of questions. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that firstly, worrying wasn’t going to help anything, secondly that I might be clever but I wasn’t capable of doing a mass manipulation of not only the advisors but also of my grades (and quite frankly if I was capable of that, then I’m obviously clever albeit on a nefarious level) and lastly I deserve good things because I work hard.

I was projecting into the future, worrying about things that hadn’t happened yet and questioning abilities that had yet to be tested. I’m lucky to have Conquering Life in my life because otherwise I might have actually considered denying myself this possibility, I might have acted as judge and juror to myself and removed myself from the running. We’re so quick to do this to ourselves, deny ourselves the things we don’t believe we deserve – limiting beliefs that we have picked up along the way in our lives, telling us that we are unworthy. Conquering Life is about giving us the tools to repair these warped perceptions and to handle our automatic reactions. Maybe I’ll get this scholarship and maybe I won’t, either way I won’t let it bring myself into question. No one and nothing should make us question ourselves and yet we are made to feel like questioning ourselves constantly is normal and necessary. Here at Conquering Life we believe that self-acceptance is vital to leading a happy life – we need ourselves on our own side.