Outside Looking In or Inside Looking Out

Quick Overview

The author describes a lifelong struggle with feeling like an outsider, shaped by societal standards and self-doubt. Through personal growth, academic achievements, and a career shift into coaching, they ultimately achieved self-acceptance. The post highlights that true belonging and self-worth come from within, not external validation—each person holds their own ‘tape measure.’

Table of Contents

For As Long as I Can Remember

The Standards I Was Chasing Were Not Mine

Shifting Perspectives

Five-Year Goal

Measuring Up

Belonging

For As Long as I Can Remember

For as long as I can remember — right up until my fifties — I always felt like an outsider looking in. It was as if there was an impenetrable barrier between me and everyone else, a vertical version of the glass ceiling — something I just couldn’t break through.

This feeling was especially strong when it came to my intellect. I received many messages, both spoken and unspoken, that told me I wasn’t smart enough. One clear example came at the end of Year 12, when all my school friends matriculated to university, and I was the only one who didn’t achieve a good enough result to go.

Growing up in state housing added to that sense of being on the margins. When I started work, I endured derogatory comments about where I lived — more reminders that I didn’t measure up. No matter what I did, it felt as though I always fell short of some invisible standard that everyone else seemed to meet effortlessly.

The Standards I Was Chasing Were Not Mine

Back then, I didn’t realise that the standards I was chasing weren’t really mine. They were borrowed from society, from comparison, from the quiet pressure to fit in. I thought ‘measuring up’ meant being enough for others.

Even after earning both an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree as a mature-age student and achieving CPA status, I still felt inadequate. I didn’t pursue a master’s degree for 20 years because I didn’t believe I was smart enough. When I encountered people I considered highly intelligent, I felt small and would always defer to their opinions, assuming my own had no value.

Shifting Perspective

But time, experience, and a few hard lessons have a way of shifting perspective. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I dramatically changed my career at 50 — from project, process, and quality management in a large corporate environment to becoming a coach, counsellor, and adult educator as a solopreneur.

While I had always been an avid learner (I often joke that I have a learning addiction), it was studying counselling and later coaching that truly turned things around. Those studies became the launch pad that shifted me from being on the outside, looking in, to being on the inside, looking out.

As I learned more about myself and became more comfortable in my own skin, I began to see the value of my own wisdom. I realised that my insights and experiences had their own worth — perhaps different from others’, but no less valuable.

Five-Year Goal

In 2005, I attended a work-funded training course where I was asked to write a five-year goal. I wrote that I wanted to complete a master’s degree by 2010. At the time, it felt like going through the motions; my heart wasn’t really in it. I finished the course, put the folder in my cupboard, and forgot all about that goal.

Then, in late 2008, I began looking into master’s programs. I had already completed an Advanced Diploma of Counselling and Family Therapy in 2006, a Certificate IV in Life Coaching in 2007, and then a Diploma of Life Coaching. I was even invited to become the Master Coach for the Life Coaching Institute of Australia.

At that point, I thought, if I can do these things, maybe it’s finally time to consider doing a master’s degree. So, I searched, found one I liked, and started in 2009. I was set to complete it in 2010.

In August 2010, I stumbled upon my 2005 goal — the one about completing a master’s by 2010. I was one month from finishing. I was stunned. Even more so when I graduated with distinction — a completely different outcome from the story I had always told myself.

Measuring Up

That achievement became a major catalyst for my shift from being on the outside, looking in, to being on the inside, looking out. For the first time, I felt like I measured up. Of course, I now understand that external achievements don’t define our worth — but back then, it was a revelation.

When someone later suggested I consider doing a PhD, I laughed. I thought they were joking at my expense. I searched for every reason it wasn’t possible for me — only to discover that it was. So, I started my PhD in 2011 and spent the first two years just trying to wrap my head around how far I had come. I completed my PhD in 2020, 9 months after my husband passed away. I did not give up even though it was very tempting on many occasions.

Belonging

Somewhere along the way, I realised I was no longer standing outside my own life. I wasn’t ‘fitting in’ — I was belonging. And belonging, I learned, comes from within.

Now, I’m on the inside looking out. The barrier that once separated me from others has disappeared because I no longer measure myself against who others are or what they think. I measure myself against who I want to be.

And that, to me, is the quiet power of growing up — realising that the tape measure has always been in my own hands.

Do you understand that the tape measure is in your hands?

How do you use that tape measure to serve your best interests? To get started on finding out what is next, check out this free PDF resource on my website today and determine your SIMPLE goals. That’s just the beginning. Contact me to talk about your needs here.