Self-image ... would you rather

[DukeandMdFan]

As a parent, I realize there is a need to instill confidence in my children and also to convey that they need to study/practice to reach their potential. Compared to my wife, I am more likely to tell my kids that they need to practice/study more if they want to be good enough for ____________ while my wife is, comparatively, more likely to tell my kids that they are already good enough and practicing is optional. That led to me coming up with the following would you rather scenarios...

Based on a scale of 1 to 10 (on anything - sports, work, attractiveness) where a 10 would be considered world-class. The rest of the world perceives you and treats you as you "actually" are. (An 8 isn't likely to cure cancer or play D-1 sports, etc. but will have more opportunities than a 6.)

Would you rather

Actually be a 6 and think you are an 8

Actually be a 7 and think you are a 7

Actually be an 8 and think you are a 6



Similarly, would you rather

Actually be a 6 and have your spouse/bf/gf and family think you are an 8

Actually be a 7 and have your spouse/bf/gf and family think you are a 7

Actually be an 8 and have your spouse/bf/gf and family think you are a 6

[JNort]

Well no matter what I can't be satisfied completely with my performance so I'd say 8 and 6 scenario. I always wanna get better even if others say I'm great

[weezie]

Wow, this is taking me quite a bit of thinking cap time...
But, since I'm a 10, I always strongly encourage those around me to think of me as an 11.
Modesty is a lost art...

Good luck with your kiddos and def encourage them to study and try harder. You sound like a great (10) dad!

[hurleyfor3]

Being a 6 at anything in life would be a hell of an improvement.

[OldPhiKap]

I'd rather be an 8 and think I'm a six. Keeps you humble and hungry.

I hope Mrs. OPK sees me as I am. So if that is 7/7, so be it.

[Skitzle]

Married a psychologist for these reasons in a sense. Spent half my life an 8 thinking he's a 6. Let me tell you. Being a 7/8 and knowing you're a 7/8 is very very healthy. You don't need to underestimate yourself to know you can improve. It's important for your mental health to know who you are and work to fit in your role.

Let's bring it back to Duke Basketball.

You don't think Quinn Cook wants to be a 10? This year coach k said you're an 8 I need you to be an 8, don't stop striving to be a 10 but know that we need you to just BE Yourself and you'll be great. He was great.

You need to know two things in life. You're not as good as you think you are you're not as bad as you think you are. If you can have a realistic view of yourself and a desire to be better that's more than enough .

[Bostondevil]

Married a psychologist for these reasons in a sense. Spent half my life an 8 thinking he's a 6. Let me tell you. Being a 7/8 and knowing you're a 7/8 is very very healthy. You don't need to underestimate yourself to know you can improve. It's important for your mental health to know who you are and work to fit in your role.

Let's bring it back to Duke Basketball.

You don't think Quinn Cook wants to be a 10? This year coach k said you're an 8 I need you to be an 8, don't stop striving to be a 10 but know that we need you to just BE Yourself and you'll be great. He was great.

You need to know two things in life. You're not as good as you think you are you're not as bad as you think you are. If you can have a realistic view of yourself and a desire to be better that's more than enough .

Yeah, pretty awesome description of why I would most like to be a 7 that knows they're a 7.

Here's the thing - I'm a playwright. And as a playwright, I'm a 9 who has the potential to be a 10. Really? Yeah, really. (It ain't braggin' if you really done it.) I'm not a 10 because of the other obligations I have in my life, family/career (otherwise known as a day job). To truly dedicate myself to my talent, I'd have to make sacrifices elsewhere. There are 4 people in the country who make their living solely as playwrights (screenwriting/teaching theater at a university puts you out of the running) and perhaps 200 who could legitimately put playwright under occupation on their tax returns. Despite averaging 6-7 productions a year, I've made $250 lifetime from my work. It's harder to be a playwright than to make the NBA and unless you're Neil Simon, nowhere near as lucrative if you do make it. So - part 2 of this question - what if you are a 9 with the potential to be a 10 - what are you willing to sacrifice to become a 10? I struggle with that question a lot.

[Reisen]

I think this looks different based on the characteristic. For example

- On attractiveness, I think overconfidence and under confidence can both be really damaging. I think you want their kid to be confident in their appearance, without obsessing over it (positively or negatively). I think you should motivate them to keep fit and take pride in their appearance, without going to unhealthy lengths (hurting their body, spending more than they can afford on clothes, etc.)

- In athletic endeavors, I don't think you can be too confident. I see way too many people pass up a wide-open shot rather than take it, and confidence will often lead to improvement. Put another way, if you think you're good at something, you'll want to do a lot of it (running a football, shooting three pointers, skiing aggressive runs) and your skill will quickly catch up to your ego.

- In social interactions, I think it's the opposite. For a wide variety of reasons, society values humility. People who society perceives as an 8, but think they are a 6, will often be treated better by their peers/friends than an 8/8, or certainly a 6/8.

- I personally feel a lot of intellectual endeavors (standardized tests, math, trivia) are no different than athletic endeavors. I was always a strong test taker because just like athletes enjoy the positive attention they get when they do well, so too did I enjoy the attention from peers, teachers, and family. It motivated me to want to keep doing well, and hone my test preparation / test taking skills. I treated scores on AP or SAT tests like a D1 athlete might treat his 40 time or long jump. You bet he's motivated to do as well as he can.

[OldPhiKap]

"Dance, ten -- looks, three."

(Not to go all showtune-y)

[Bostondevil]

- In social interactions, I think it's the opposite. For a wide variety of reasons, society values humility. People who society perceives as an 8, but think they are a 6, will often be treated better by their peers/friends than an 8/8, or certainly a 6/8.

Hmmm, I think that's not entirely correct. It might be true for friendships but I don't think it's true for romantic relationships. I also don't think it's true in work relationships, particularly when considering promotions/leadership positions. You might want to be best friends with the 6/8 but you hire the 8/8 or the 8/9.

Think about the whole Big Jerk theory (the less humility you show in dating relationships, the more hung up on you your dating partners tend to be). The reason it's a theory is because all of us have seen it in action.

[DukeandMdFan]

Thanks for the replies.

I think it's good for the self-image to be skewed a little high, but reasonably close. After enough thought to pose the question, I'd go with 7/7. In some cases, I think my kids' self-assesment is too high, which leads to them not being played as well (or selected for some other honor) as they think they deserve. As the result, the simple justification is that the coach (or whoever) doesn't like them or he is playing favorites with another kid. I tried to explain to my wife that if I wasn't getting as much playing time as I wanted, I would prefer it to be because I wasn't good enough (and I could practice to get better) rather than because the coach didn't like me. I've also told my wife that if they don't make the team, the reason should be that they weren't good enough rather than they don't try out well. I don't want them to have the self-image that they don't try out well. I now realize that we should have had these discussions when my kids were very young...

I'm not sure about the actual - spouse/family assessment. It would be a shame to be an 8 and have my family think I was a 6. It would be much nicer to have my family think I was an 8, but if I was a 6 there would need to be some reason why I wasn't treated with more respect by others and it would be nice to be better than a 6. So, I'd probably go with 7/7 here too. That said, for attractiveness, I'd rather my wife think I was an 8 even if I was really lower...

[Rich]

How can one possibly be a fan of both Duke and Maryland? Eeeewwww!

[DukeandMdFan]

How can one possibly be a fan of both Duke and Maryland? Eeeewwww!

Both my parents went to Duke. I grew up a huge Duke fan and went to Duke Basketball Camp after 10th grade.

In my junior year of HS, I had planned to play basketball in college at a D-3 school and root for Duke. I had no real idea what I wanted to major in. As a senior, I applied to D-3 Swarthmore College and the Univ of Md as a safety school. Somehow, I had convinced myself that I was going to get a "Leadership Scholarship" to go to Swarthmore College where they were small enough that I thought I could play. By the spring, I had also decided to be a mechanical engineer. (Actually, I saw that Weldon Williams was majoring in Biomedical Engineering and thought that would be a good major, but it wasn't offered at U of Md or Swarthmore.) I didn't get the scholarship and I learned that Swarthmore didn't even have an engineering program. If I wanted to be an engineer at Swarthmore, I could do something like take engineering courses off-campus through a Penn State satellite campus. After some thought, I decided it didn't make sense to spend > $10K per year to go to a college where the engineering education wouldn't be as good just to play organized basketball, especially since pick-up basketball at MD could have more talent than I would ever face at a D-3 school. So, I went to U of Md. At the time (1985), there wasn't any real animosity between Duke and MD other than a few "Puke on Duke" tee-shirts. It also wasn't clear that Duke was going to have an amazing run of 30 years of success while MD's was going to be up and down. I knew I would continue to root for Duke as long as Dawkins, Alarie, Amaker, etc were at Duke, but had thought my allegiance would switch completely to MD once those players had graduated. But, Duke keeps bringing in players who are easy to root for...(and way too many MD fans started acting stupid beginning in the late '90s).

In college, I took a few road trips to Duke and encouraged my younger sister to go there, which she did. My friends and I also hit the Duke bookstore and wore Duke gear on MD's campus with no questions. I knew a few of the MD players and one of them complimented me on either my 24 or 35 Thanks for The Memories tee-shirt that I was wearing.

My wife and kids have seen several games in Cameron and they all root for Duke. (Actually, my wife rooted against Duke one time - she went to Lehigh). My sons have gone to the Duke Basketball Camp the last two summers.

I have enjoyed reading DBR since '99 and haven't had as much use for the MD boards...

I still root for both teams. With MD moving to the B1G, it isn't nearly as hard to root for both schools.

(I think Gary Williams and MD used a few calls by the referees as an excuse to lose in the 2001 Final Four, just like Bo Ryan and Wisconsin used the referees as an excuse to lose in 2015. Wisconsin was killing Duke on offensive rebounds in the first half. After Wisconsin complained about the Tyus Jones foul with more than ten minutes left, the only offensive rebounds they got were on blocked shots and as the game was ending.)

[Rich]

Both my parents went to Duke. I grew up a huge Duke fan and went to Duke Basketball Camp after 10th grade.

In my junior year of HS, I had planned to play basketball in college at a D-3 school and root for Duke. I had no real idea what I wanted to major in. As a senior, I applied to D-3 Swarthmore College and the Univ of Md as a safety school. Somehow, I had convinced myself that I was going to get a "Leadership Scholarship" to go to Swarthmore College where they were small enough that I thought I could play. By the spring, I had also decided to be a mechanical engineer. (Actually, I saw that Weldon Williams was majoring in Biomedical Engineering and thought that would be a good major, but it wasn't offered at U of Md or Swarthmore.) I didn't get the scholarship and I learned that Swarthmore didn't even have an engineering program. If I wanted to be an engineer at Swarthmore, I could do something like take engineering courses off-campus through a Penn State satellite campus. After some thought, I decided it didn't make sense to spend > $10K per year to go to a college where the engineering education wouldn't be as good just to play organized basketball, especially since pick-up basketball at MD could have more talent than I would ever face at a D-3 school. So, I went to U of Md. At the time (1985), there wasn't any real animosity between Duke and MD other than a few "Puke on Duke" tee-shirts. It also wasn't clear that Duke was going to have an amazing run of 30 years of success while MD's was going to be up and down. I knew I would continue to root for Duke as long as Dawkins, Alarie, Amaker, etc were at Duke, but had thought my allegiance would switch completely to MD once those players had graduated. But, Duke keeps bringing in players who are easy to root for...(and way too many MD fans started acting stupid beginning in the late '90s).

In college, I took a few road trips to Duke and encouraged my younger sister to go there, which she did. My friends and I also hit the Duke bookstore and wore Duke gear on MD's campus with no questions. I knew a few of the MD players and one of them complimented me on either my 24 or 35 Thanks for The Memories tee-shirt that I was wearing.

My wife and kids have seen several games in Cameron and they all root for Duke. (Actually, my wife rooted against Duke one time - she went to Lehigh). My sons have gone to the Duke Basketball Camp the last two summers.

I have enjoyed reading DBR since '99 and haven't had as much use for the MD boards...

I still root for both teams. With MD moving to the B1G, it isn't nearly as hard to root for both schools.

(I think Gary Williams and MD used a few calls by the referees as an excuse to lose in the 2001 Final Four, just like Bo Ryan and Wisconsin used the referees as an excuse to lose in 2015. Wisconsin was killing Duke on offensive rebounds in the first half. After Wisconsin complained about the Tyus Jones foul with more than ten minutes left, the only offensive rebounds they got were on blocked shots and as the game was ending.)

A good story...you're forgiven, but we're going to have to keep an eye on you!

[captmojo]

I was told that there'd be no math.

I'm probably a 4 that is often pleasantly surprised when I occasionally can come up with a 7 or 8.

I want to be thought of as a 2, so I can pleasantly surprise others.

Doesn't that make me a 42? Well, that's what I'm telling.

RISE ABOVE YOUR EXPECTATIONS!