Self limiting Beliefs

I will never forget my seventh grade Math teacher’s name. I won’t use her real name for the sake of not calling out a woman, who is likely very old now. Let’s call her, Mrs. Dalton. There wasn’t any tangible proof that I wasn’t cut out for math. I was getting an A in her class.

All the seventh graders took a class to determine who would be able to take Pre-Algebra in 8th grade. As a super nerd, I was nervous about this test and really wanted to be able to take the special smart math class the next year.

When my results came back, Mrs. Dalton and I were both shocked.

I passed the test!

Up until that point, I’d done well in school, getting A’s in all subjects. As I said, my only reason I was unsure of my math skills was mostly in my mind and in my confidence. I tested into the gifted program at a young age, as well. For the most part, I was seemingly a bright kid who could handle Pre-Algebra in 8th grade.

Mrs. Dalton was surprised of my abilities, despite me not showing any evidence of not having mathematical prowess in her class.

She stood before me. Her hand shook as she looked down at the paper with all the scores. Her face was twisted in doubt. The crease between her brows was more pronounced.

“You passed. Somehow, you passed.”

It was subtle. It wasn’t like she straight up said to my face, “You are a complete math idiot. How did you guess all the right answers to pass?”

She never said this, but my imagination went wild. I thought: I’m so lucky! I got all the right answers somehow! I’m so lucky!

From then on and for the rest of my life, I thought I was lucky. I got into UC Berkeley and graduated with Honors, which I attributed to pure luck.

If you would have told me when I was that seventh grader standing in front of my math teacher, feeling like the dumbest person in class, that I would grow up to be a software engineer and data scientist, I would have not believed you.

I wonder how many similar stories women or people of color have like mine?

Many women doubt their abilities in science, technology, engineering, and math. Nurses who save people’s lives, which requires a high level of critical thinking, doubt they would ever be able to become engineers. I was one of those nurses.

I doubted I would be able to do it. Other nurses doubted it. My friends doubted it.

Something inside of me said to go for it. Try it. If I fail, at least, I tried.

I challenge you to think about your own history with science, technology, engineering, or math. Have there been any experiences in your life to lead you to think you would never be good enough to pursue careers in these industries?

Taking apart these kinds of experiences and examining how they have affected us can be helpful to uncovering why we think they way we do.

You can do hard things. Whatever or whoever led you to think you couldn’t doesn’t matter now.