It's the silly season. The season where everyone you ever know wants to catch up, meet up and often drink up.
It's the time we all share what 2019 has delivered (or not).
And if we don't get a personal account of someone's achievements, alas, we are all connected digitally. Every day we can scroll our devices checking out what our family, friends and the rest of the world are up to, personally and professionally (if we choose).
It’s awesome …….and it’s not!
It’s awesome when we are curious and we can learn about other peoples lives and learn about the world. And it’s not when we start to doubt ourself or our life, as a consequence.
I’ve written and spoken on the Comparison Conundrum before.
Our challenge is that more often than not, we are looking at snippets of someone else’s life or career (which of course looks incredible, as it’s the highlight reel of their movie called “Life”) and we are comparing it to our raw footage of our entire motion picture (bloopers and all).
We can often be left feeling like we have not done enough, don’t have enough or that we are not good enough!
Sometimes, we try to ‘prove’ ourselves, to others, or even to ourselves. We might start to talk ourselves up, share all the best bits and hide all our flaws. We put on a brave face, masking the reality of our truth.
Maybe we try to prove ourself at work, that we are unaffected by the latest restructure, or that we understand the new system when the reality is, we're struggling and just need a little bit of help.
When we are constantly trying to ‘prove’ ourselves we seek validation from others, comparing to someone else’s yardstick and we don’t feel good about ourselves till we reach it.
Fear drives us to believe that we are not good enough so we pretend to be someone we are not and then wonder why we feel so disconnected and miserable.
Trying to prove oneself is exhausting and it’s a complete waste of time.
So what if we stopped trying to ‘prove’ ourselves, and instead, ‘IMprove’ ourselves?
What difference might that make?
Instead of wasting our energy on trying to prove you are enough (which by the way you are), what if we concentrated our limited energy on the progress we have made, the learnings we can take and the opportunities available to learn and grow some more.
What if we looked fear in the face and said “ F@ck you fear, I’m OK. I got this!” and you keep doing something to get closer to where you want to be.
When we are seeking to ‘IMprove’ we are no longer comparing to someone else’s yardstick but our own. We accept that we are on a journey and we are prepared to keep taking the right steps. We pivot, we adjust, we learn, in order to get there. And more importantly, we are no longer seeking external validation, because what others think is kinda not the point.
What difference would that make to yourself, your career or your life?
How would that make you feel?
From prove to IMprove, those simple two letters make one hell of a difference.
Try it out!
P.S: 2019 is coming to an end very very soon. Instead of focussing on what you don't have or didn't achieve this year, why not take the opportunity to focus on what you do have and the progress you have made throughout the year. You might be pleasantly chuffed with yourself!
BLYTHE ROWE & Her Life on Heels.
The founder & director of Human Incite, is widely recognised for her passion, energy and her ability to shake things up. Blythe is brilliant at revving-up productivity & performance in organisations. Her passion made her to be an advocate in creating sustainable behavioural changes & creating meaningful relationships both personally and professionally with her most recent Keynote 'Science of Connection'. Her enthusiasm simply is infectious.