I stepped out of my comfort zone and it actually…sucked?

I am 24 now. An adult. But to really understand who I am and why I am the way I am we need to do a quick travel to my childhood.

Growing up, I understood and loved Math. I was curious about science. I did well in school. I loved classical Indian music and dancing. Overall, I was that kid who was praised and rewarded constantly for learning and understanding concepts faster than an average student.

Fast forward to now, you would now think that I have a lot of talents up my sleeve and that I have a strong foundation in singing and dancing. I am student that graduated with first class honours etc. Here is where you are wrong. Terribly wrong.

You see… my head start in childhood actually made me really fickle. I would pick up a hobby and if I was not naturally good at it, I would immediately drop it, lamenting that it is not for me. I think at this point, you might know where I am going. I was a classic example of the gifted kid burnout phenomenon.

This attitude of mine spilled into my education, passion and hobbies. Regardless of how talented you are, in order to actually become good at what you do, you need to work hard at it.

“Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.” ― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

I was always the child that got asked to sing at family gatherings. It came easy when I was young, but there is always a limit to how far natural talent can take you. I was always constantly getting praised by family and relatives that I am really good at singing. My toxic trait would be listening to Lady gaga pour her hear and soul into the rendition of Shallow and think to myself, “hmm, I could do that hehe ”

So this is where things get spicy real quick. I participated in one of the most popular singing challenges in the Singaporean Indian scene and emerged one of the semi-finalists on the show. That might not seem too bad at all on the surface. However, this singing competition absolutely kicked my ass and my false sense of confidence quickly evaporated.

Just like you guessed, I got through the auditions really easily because I was above average. However, in order to win a competition, simply being above average is not sufficient. You need technical knowledge, an open mindset and most importantly, the tenacity to continue despite failures. These are all factors that one does not accumulate by simply being remotely good at something because of some natural incline towards the art.

Participating in this competition is one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life because I had lived my entire life never really understanding my actions or emotions. I simply fleeted from one stage to the next. However, stepping out of my comfort zone.. actually scratch that. This competition FLUNG me out of my comfort zone.

Getting out of my comfort zone was difficult. It exposed me to some of my worst fears. I compared and pit myself against other singers in the competition. I let peoples’ opinions get the better of me. I doubted myself. My confidence took the biggest hit. There was always a nagging feeling that I was never good enough.

“Maybe, I don’t have a good voice after all? There are people who look and sing much better than me, so why would they want me in the show? I think my vocal coach hates me. I don’t think I can proceed to the next round. I am scared. I think I should just accept defeat at this point.”

This was how my mind functioned all the time. So, yes. It sucked. Getting out of my comfort zone, absolutely sucked. However…

It BROKE open my shell. I worked extremely hard for every song. Regardless of the outcome, for every round, I strategised and tried something new. I chose songs I never usually would. Regardless of how anxious and scared I was, when I was on stage, my love and connection with my art took precedence. I slowly reached a point where I realised that it is the new me fighting the old me.

I worked tremendously hard and at multiple times, failed phenomenally. However, all I remember, is how hard I worked and seeing myself put in the work for myself was breath taking. I am so proud of my journey. I tackled my fears head on. It was near the end of the competition that I actually started learning to steady myself. I remember my video asking for people to vote for me going absolutely viral. I realised that I was witty, funny, smart and knew how to hold people’s attention on me at that point. Signing up for this competition connected me to myself even more strongly.

Stepping out of my comfort zone was incredibly scary and horrific at times. However, doing that was one of the best decisions I could have ever taken because here I am now, righting a blog post on how I called myself out on my self-sabotage and grew into an upgraded version of myself.

Love,

Soundharya