Selling Yourself Short

As a teacher I am not very good at self promotion.  One of a teacher's roles is to be a promoter of the students and the school.  So there is a natural sense to pull oneself into the background and let the student take the spotlight.  Which makes the end of the year evaluation a little uncomfortable.  I am talking here about my evaluation by the principal, After sitting in on a class, the principal and I go through a long list of traits and score how I am doing.  I find building myself up to be uncomfortable, but there are many things that go on that the principal wouldn't see.  So if I don't tell him, how would he know.

In the world of business, self promotion is part of the game.  Whether you are in business for yourself or working for someone else, at some point you have to say, "I can do that." and put yourself forward.  It isn't just declaring an ability, but saying that you can do it better than others who can also do it.  

A friend once relayed a story to me.  He had a friend that was a petroleum engineer for a large oil company.  At one point he is in a meeting with the top people at this company.  Most of the people in the room made 10 time or even 100 times his salary.  He found himself thinking, what is the difference between them and me?  He thought that he could surely do the job that they were doing.  So how did they end up on that side of the table while he was still on this one.  He realized that the answer was self promotion.  The skill that they had, which he did not, was the ability to sell themselves as having the ability to make a difference in that position and putting themselves there.  He thought that in the corporate world, self promotion is one of the keys to advancement.

 

Christians have a calling that is different than what the world demands for success.  Christians are called to put ourselves in the background and God in the foreground.  When we say that our lives should bring God glory, that means that the achievements in our lives need to help others appreciate God not us.  And to be honest, if self promotion is difficult, selling myself short is even more so. 

Watch this clip from Pastor Lowell.

The idea of the Christian life is to make God look good.  That means that we need to sell our selves short so that the promotion goes to Him.  It is said that if you don't look out for number one, than who will?  Well, God will for starters.