When I learn something and start implementing it, everything feels new and somewhat overwhelming. As it is new there is some discomfort coming along. Questions like “am I doing this right?” or “what will they think?” pop up showing the doubts I have about my own performance.

We all ask ourselves such questions while learning as well as in everyday situations. There is nothing wrong about it, it is part of the stories we tell ourselves and the way we have learned to succeed.

Nevertheless, it is interesting, that we often only ask ourselves such questions. What would happen if we’d shared these questions with others?

If you are now feeling some resistance to that question, can it be, that the questions you are asking yourself serve a different purpose than to help you learn? Is there something about the environment making you feel uncomfortable to ask such questions? Or is there something in this environment that makes you feel uncomfortable if you don’t perform as you’ve seen others do? Or do you prefer to keep the questions to yourself “just in case”?

Any time we are together with others, we intuitively organize ourselves to find a match between the values, principles, and rules we live by and the ones we see the others live up to. We are astonishingly quick at taking these in and adapting to them as much as we feel like it. We do this to fit in, to be able to belong to that group. This goes back to mankind’s beginning when our ability to live in a group enhanced our chances to survive. We continue to do it because we need others, we need to be connected and have relationships. That’s because of our need for stimulations. Without stimulations life starts to become dull and hard to live. Isolation is dreadful.

Asking ourselves questions about how we fit in thus continue to be very helpful. Nevertheless, in today’s world, we can enhance these questions with a more basic one: “Do I want to fit in, in this group?”.

Today’s connectivity allows for more choices than those available in the past. If the group we are in isn’t aligned with our values and principles, we have at least two choices. The first one is to work to find alignment, the second one is to choose a different group in which we can find alignment.