"I suck. I can't do this."

Photo: me standing on top of a giant rock outcropping in southwestern Utah because I can do hard things. 😁

"I suck. I can't do this."

I don't know about you, but I've said those words more times than I'd like to admit.

When I was a kid, I played the clarinet. I never took formal lessons - I played in the school band, and my father was my teacher. Our weekly lessons usually involved the two of us playing duets together, or he would help me with a particularly tricky passage in a piece we were playing in my high school's band.

Our sessions mostly felt fun and challenging - a special way to spend time with my dad each week. He also happens to be a psychotherapist and a good listener. (This will be relevant in a moment 😎)

Inevitably, if I was going through a hard time with something in my life, it would come up in our sessions.

At first I might be practicing a scale or a tricky passage of music and I would mess up once. Then I'd mess up twice, then basically deliberately make a total muck of whatever I was doing.

And then I would put down my clarinet and say "I suck. I can't do this." And probably also cry.

And my patient and insightful dad would know this outburst had nothing to do with playing the clarinet. In part because we both knew that I genuinely did not suck. I was actually a pretty exceptional player. 😉

So he would sit, and let me cry or fume or pout. And then eventually we would work our way around to what was really going on, whatever was really bothering me.

Now that I'm an adult running my own business, I find myself thinking of those conversations sometimes. Because inevitably I still have moments where I throw my hands up and say, "I suck. I can't do this."

But if I think about my dad and those conversations over clarinet lessons, I can remember that I don't actually suck at this. I'm just having a hard time at the moment, and I need to give myself the space to work through it.

So in case you need it, here's your reminder - if you feel like you suck and you can't do this, chances are you're probably pretty awesome and you're having a hard time for some other reason. So give yourself a break, call a friend, take the space you need to move through the hard feelings.

And then pick up that darn clarinet again and make some awesome music. 🎶

What do you do when you hear that "I suck" voice in your head?