This is what a question posed by someone at Quora and I couldn’t resist myself answering this for two reasons, (1) out of empathy with this person; and (2) to give him the other perspective of the world. Below is what I answered:

Who determines that you are good at nothing? How does this process start in the first place?

  • You think like this at first.
  • Then You think the world thinks about you like this.
  • Finally, you and your world start thinking like this and you confirm your own wrong beliefs.

“If you don’t believe you, no one else will” ~ Cathey Moriarty

The basic assumption that one is good at nothing is wrong.

Everyone has something to offer to the world. God has made all of us unique in our strengths. The only thing is to find out that strength within us. One can spend life in two ways:

  1. Thinking that he or she is not good enough, or
  2. Putting efforts to ascertain, where he or she can start with something at least.

The first option, continuously thinking that one is not good enough, will not help, rather it will aggravate the problem for worse.

The other option is to take action, whatever one can take. as is rightly quoted below

“If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, But whatever you can do, you have to keep moving forward” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Instead of putting a question at Quora to ask how to survive assuming that one is good at nothing, one could have put a question google to know how to find what you are good at.

This all is a mindset issue, as Carol Dweck explains in her book “Mindset- New Psychology of Success”. Such thoughts are “Fixed Mindset” issues, in which the person thinks that his abilities are fixed. Such mindset doesn’t prompt the person to put any efforts. As putting the efforts means that one is not cut out to be like this, so why to put efforts.

The opposite to that is a growth mindset, in which people think that they can learn anything they wish to. Such mindset promotes the efforts as the key to learn and grow.

Can you imagine a person, whose both legs had been amputated can think of climbing the Mount Everest? It has happened. check this out…https://yourstory.com/2015/05/ar…

Can you think of a person, whose whole body is burnt and doctors doubted his ability to walk during lifetime, can set a world record of climbing all the top mountains at all continents in record time. It has happened. Check out this TED Talk

There is a serious need to see the possibilities around and a need to come out of your self-doubt. There is also a need for sincere efforts and a great desire to live beyond self-doubt. My book “Living Beyond Self Doubt” addresses this disease of doubting your self-worth and will show you the new world of possibilities with real-life struggle and success stories.

I am strongly convinced that everyone has something unique as a value to offer to the world and thrive in the world (not merely survive).

You Just a need to remove the cloud and let the sunshine remove all the darkness.

Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Hope you liked this. Please share with your friends too.


Som Bathla
Som Bathla

Som Bathla loves to and has written many books on developing a growth oriented mindset, increasing productivity, better time management and other areas of personal development. You may check out all his books at https://www.amazon.com/Som-Bathla/e/B00Q4YMB2G/. He has good plans to continuously create more action guides to help readers to lead a resourceful life. He lives in NCR of Delhi, India with his family. While not working, he loves to spend time with his family, traveling and exploring the next best things.

    1 Response to "How can I survive If I am good at nothing?"

    • Marie

      If you don’t believe you, no one else will? Well, i used to believe in myself until I started working, It proved it.

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