Be it Beyonce or F Scott Fitzgerald, you can be just as good as your idols

Manar Al Hinai explains that you should have confidence in yourself and not feel inadequate compared to those in a similar field that you look up to.

A friend of mine saw her favourite pop singer, Beyoncé, at one of her concerts. “She is so beautiful. I felt like nothing in front of her,” she told me. Bear in mind that my friend is also beautiful, but feeling inadequate when you meet someone you idolise can be a common scenario.

Like of all us, I occasionally meet someone so inspiring that they leave me tongue-tied. This will often result in me talking about the incident for days.

I tell my friends how incredible that person was and how I aspire to be like that one day. These are often figures in the same field as I am, so we have a passion in common. Meeting inspiring people can leave some people feeling insecure about themselves, making them feel they are not good enough.

This could have happened to me when I once met an incredibly successful writer, but I have learnt how to feel confident when meeting someone you idolise.

Keep in mind that when you do meet someone you admire, you are really just sharing a passion you both have. What I mean by that is that we often admire others who are similar to us. For instance, it is no secret that I admire the late American writer F Scott Fitzgerald and the Irish novelist Cecelia Ahern. Why? Because I love writing romance stories too.

An aspiring pop artist may like Beyoncé and Rihanna. A real estate investor might look up to the likes of Donald Trump. We often have the same ability to succeed as the people we respect the most. It is just a matter of tapping into that ability.

Realising this made me feel more confident when meeting like-minded individuals, because deep down we are the same. They may further be ahead in the game than me, but that does not mean I cannot make similar achievements in my career too. It just takes hard work and effort, the same route they took to reach where they are today.

This takes us to the importance of appreciating the fact that you are where you need to be right now. When we look up to someone and become fixated on their success story, we might assume that the only route to success is the route they have taken. While it is right to be hard-working, determined and with your eyes on the prize, your idols’ way is not necessarily the only way.

For instance, what worked for F Scott Fitzgerald at the time will not necessarily work for me. He lived in a different time, in a completely different culture and, most importantly, we are totally different people. So have faith and trust in yourself. As long as you are investing your time and you are working hard, then you will reach your target.

Also, often when we idolise someone so much, we might want to impress them both directly and indirectly. We might buy something just because they did or go on a similar diet, even telling them we did so in the hope of impressing them. This can happen if someone works in the same place as the person they admire.

My advice is stop trying to mimic their behaviour, as you are not being fair to yourself. Have confidence in your interests and life, and let the person you look up to and other people fall in love with those qualities. No matter how successful people are, they will still admire genuine interests and desires.

Confidence is a trait shared by many of our successful idols. Feeling confident around your idol could be tricky, but it is not impossible.

Realise that you admire them because of your shared interests, appreciate that you are where you need to be and do not necessarily need to follow their path step by step, and be confident in your own interests without the need to impress anybody. You could be surprised at how confident and at ease you would be.

Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer based in Abu Dhabi. Follow her on Twitter: @manar_alhinai

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