#lrnchat is a weekly conversation among L&D folks in the Twitterverse that happens twice every Thursday at 11:30 EDT and 8:30 EDT. Yesterday's topic was working in a one-person training department. I was excited to see the kind of response these questions got because I wrote the first four questions. I mention that I wrote these questions not to garner recognition, but because I did not think that they would generate the level of conversation that we had yesterday. You can see the transcript here: http://lrnchat.com/
I know I'm intelligent but when comparing myself to my Twitter peers, I just feel like I can't compete on any level. I think that part of it is because I've only been doing this (educating/training) for 4 years. I think that another reason is my lack of confidence in myself. That's where I see the problem because I'm good at my job.
Maybe the solution is to stop comparing myself to my peers in the great land of Twitter - but it's hard to stop making those comparisons because they are doing things that I aspire to do and they have knowledge that I wish I had. The decision to stop comparing myself to my peers is a difficult one to make because I push myself to be better when I think about the things they do that I want to do and achieve in my life. And then I think about this: I've only been on Twitter since March 17 this year. I can't imagine all the things that I wouldn't know if I wasn't on Twitter so if I stop making the comparison then I don't grow as much. That doesn't seem like a good solution.
I can say without a doubt that my knowledge has increased since March 17 this year. I don't remember how I stumbled upon #lrnchat or came to follow people like @c4lpt, @janebozarth, or @hjarche and others, but I do know that I find their thoughts, books, and blog posts to be some of the most influential additions to my personal learning. I don't even know if I would be attempting a blog if it weren't for the influence of my PLN on Twitter.
Maybe I shouldn't be saying "Am I Capable" but "I Am Capable". Maybe I can compare with the 'big dogs' of the L&D world. I've got a lot of room for improvement, but changing the attitude from 'am I' to 'I am' seems like a better solution than not striving to achieve new and great things. I guess that's all it is - an attitude adjustment. The title of this post shouldn't be A Confident Trainer? it should be A Confident Trainer. Expanding my PLN has benefited and challenged me more than I realized. Those feelings of inadequacy must just be there to push me further so that I no longer feel inadequate. It's good to never be too sure of one's self anyway, right?
