It all comes down to your own inner narratives. And these narratives determine your mindset and thus your life. Of course, our beliefs are strongly determined by our education in early life, but the good news is, we can change these mindsets.

Suffering from the imposter syndrome? I did. Before changing my job, I had strong doubts about my qualitication as a teacher until the da I finihsed my Master’s degree as a social worker: Telling myself I was only a teacher out of luc, because I lacked the formal degree sounds ridiculous to me today. But it was my narrative and my inner mindset: You are only a teacher with the formal degree and no matter what you do, it came down to lucky circumstance. That, too, belonged to my core.

Am I still suffeirng from that experience? Maybe, but I have long established the mindset that I am the sum of my experiences, bad and good, and I can deal with these feelings. I am not ashamed of these feelings, because it does not affect my self esteem. It did so years ago, so that is wh I kept on drinking and this got worse after each burnout. Burnout meant: Your luck has left you, everyone realises now you are not a proper teacher. So drink!

For the last years, and especially for the last months after quitting alcohol, I have become stronger in the belief in myself, I have a stronger self esteem and, recently, I don’t suppress the old feelings of remorse and shame anymore. My narratives have changed. And so have my mindsets. I don’t feel it’s down to fate or luck or outer circumstance any more. I feel and know that it comes from myself. It is no luck. It’s the decision to feel I am worthy as a person and that I can deal with it. It comes down to mindset, self efficacy, resilience and self compassion. It’s an active choice.

Of course sometimes life gives you lemons you can’t make lemonade from. Sometimes you just have to deal with the fact that things are lost or (temporarily) hopeless. It’s my choice how to deal with it.

I, for no means, will not coin every failure as a success in progress. I deal with shame, loss, grief, sadness, anger and fear. I will endure it to know there will be sunshine after the rain. But I also know that after sunshine the next tempest awaits. And sunshine is the time to board up windows and doors for the next tempest. Resilience doesn’t mean the storm won’t be coming. Reisilience means how you deal with the storm without taking too much damage. And how quickly you’ll be able to stand up and repair the damage.

It’s choice, it’s mindset. At least a huge part of it. Luck plays a role, too. But you can have an influence on how much luck determines your actions. That’s what I’ve learned.

Until next time, keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.