Stop BEING SO HUMBLE

Your inability to acknowledge your achievements is holding you back. Let’s deal with your Achievement Dysmorphia right now.

---

I have spent years reading about, talking about and experiencing Imposter Syndrome. I’m not alone in this, nor am I special when it comes to feelings of insecurity, inadequacy and fear of being found out to be a fraud.

Almost every high-achieving person I’ve ever met has verbalised the fear that if someone scratches a little bit below the surface, they’ll find a fraud.

I have spent hundreds of hours struggling to figure out where these feelings come from and why I can’t shake them. Do I need to work harder, learn more and execute better than I do already? Should I study more? Seek a mentor? Find a therapist and work through my daddy issues (we all have daddy issues)?

I did all of the above, but the syndrome persists.

Then a few years ago, I started coaching entrepreneurs in high-performing businesses and noticed a trend in their approach to their own achievements.

When many of the people I coach see colleagues or competitors achieve something amazing, they can immediately acknowledge how smart, gifted, talented and exceptional that person is and are happy to verbalise this and praise these people publicly. However, when we try to talk about what they have accomplished (even in a private coaching session), they dismiss their own achievements and chalk them up to luck, timing, their team, a good investor, a great client, a partner who helped them or a tiny bit of advice they read online. Any reason not to own their achievements.

For some reason, high-achievers just can’t see their own achievements for what they are. We blur them, we distort them, and we twist them around so that they no longer look or feel like achievements that belong to us.

Sure, there is no “I” in team, but there sure as hell is an “I” in “win” and sometimes I win.

Sometimes I did something amazing without help.

Sometimes I orchestrated a calculated strategic move that generated millions of dollars in revenue and changed the shape of my company.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I win without help or at the very least, I lead a team of people who follow my instructions, and we win because I was at the helm.

I call this Achievement Dysmorphia - an inability to recognise and own your accomplishments.

Think about someone in your life who impresses you. Everything they do seems to work out. They always look incredible, they beam confidence when they smile, and they make everyone around them feel like the superhero version of themselves. Every move they make is brilliant and people shower them with the spoils of victory.

You look at what they have achieved and credit them for their hard work, strategic skill and ability to execute better than anyone else. You give them direct and immediate credit in your mind for what they have achieved. Whether you like it or not, you credit them; even if you begrudge them for their success, you attribute it to them.

Now, think about your own achievements.

What was the last thing you accomplished? Hit a deadline at work? Received a raise? Wrote a book? Ran a faster mile than you ever have? Lifted more at the gym than you ever have? Raised a kid who isn’t an asshole?

When you look at this achievement, how do you explain it? Do you call it luck or attribute it partially to someone else, or maybe you credit your team and dismiss your involvement?

This is Achievement Dysmorphia in action; Our inability to recognise our achievements for what they actually are is crippling us and we don’t even know it.

We dismiss our achievements, our success, our ability to do something remarkable without help from others. We push aside our ability to put in the hard work, grind through tough times, and make carefully calculated strategic decisions.

In effect, we give away our achievements and our track record because we can’t fathom owning our achievements.

I’m sick and tired of people receiving an award and thanking everything in their lives until the award show producers have to usher them off with music. I want to see someone receive an Oscar and thank themselves. I want to see someone win a Grammy and stand up and say: “I did this. I worked hard. I toiled. I struggled. I grinded it out, with the help of my team, of course. But I am proud of myself for winning this award. I did it!”

We live in a world where it’s bad to admit to being good.

We live in a world where we marvel at the greats but demand they never take credit for their success, or we brand them arrogant and try to tear them down. We put people on a pedestal and then ask them to ignore how they got there in the first place. We live in a world where success is knocked down because you are too young, too old, too rich, too poor, too black, too white, too male, too female or too much of anything.

It is not arrogant to acknowledge that you have done something difficult and done it better than anyone else. It’s honest. Being humble doesn’t mean dismissing your own achievements or involvement in the success of something great.

Being honest with ourselves about our abilities and achievements will help us manage Imposter Syndrome (it never goes away, trust me) and helps us understand where we can do better next time.

Constantly attributing our achievements to others might feel like the appropriate thing to do, but it is damaging our egos negatively and influences our self-talk, sense of self and ability to be honest with ourselves.

Own your success. Own your failure. Drop your ego and be honest with yourself.

If you have the self-awareness to recognise your own shortcomings, and you can combine this with an ability to acknowledge your own achievements as yours, then you will be able to realistically assess your feelings of Imposter Syndrome and overcome them in the moment.

If, however, you never give yourself credit for doing something amazing, difficult or complex, then you will constantly be left needing other people’s approval, warping your own abilities and allowing people to push you aside.

It takes time to figure out what you are good at, and what you are bad at and to develop the self-confidence to admit when you have done something incredible. Take the time and start with something small today. 

The next time someone congratulates you or thanks you for doing something, just thank them for the compliment and move on.

What Would You Really Do To Succeed?

What would you really do to reach your full potential?

I’m actually asking you to think about this question right now. While you think I want to talk about something a little bit uncomfortable…

There is a South African thought experiment that we sometimes discuss because our country is pretty violent. The experiment involves a scenario in which your home has been invaded and there is a gun pointed at your head. The thought experiment is: What would you do?

Many people respond that there is nothing you can do. Your hands are literally tied and there is a gun pointed at your head. You wait.

Not me. Not a fuck. No waiting.

I always answer that I would fight, head but, wriggle around, kick or scream and do whatever it takes, even if it means I get shot in the process. I’d fight.

I’d fight because with my last breath I want to know that I did something more than wait for death.

Kinda like life, I want to know that I have lived and fought, not waited for death.

So, what would you do?

There is a species of sea slug that when faced with internal parasites that would certainly kill them, simply behead themselves and regrow their bodies without the parasites. I love this.

Now, of course, they understand intrinsically that this is something they are built to do. It’s not that much of a sacrifice in the grand scheme of their lives. But I can’t imagine it’s a lot of fun to remove your own body from your head. Even if it would save your life and even if your head is meant to do that.

Success and life are relatively similar to the self-beheading of the sea slug; we know what it takes to be successful. We know we have it in us to do the work. We know life is there for living. We’ve seen others do it before, but more often than not it’s easier to not do the work.

In the movie Saw, at one point the main character is faced with a decision: die in the room handcuffed to a pipe or saw off his own hand and escape.

What would you do to survive? What would you do to thrive?

Of course, I am being melodramatic. But dying slowly and unhappily at the hands of indecision, unhappiness and a lack of ambition might be worse than dying quickly at the hands of a psychotic serial killer.

You get to choose what you fight for. You get to choose what you cut out, cut off and cut loose. Nothing is sacred. Nothing deserves to remain simply because it has always been there. Nothing should hold you back from the life you want, the business you need, the side hustle you’ve been dreaming of or the career you were destined for.

You are programmed to move forward, to progress and to survive just like the sea slugs. Yet we insist on collecting things that we know are slowly killing us.

Start cutting.

Rob Hope - Freedom as success

In this episode, I catch up with Rob Hope, a Cape Town-based multi-talented digital maker who goes by many labels from designer to developer to a casual surfer. With an aim is to fill his day with things which inspire him, Rob opts to take on things which challenge or offer enjoyment (like surfing).

In this episode, I catch up with Rob Hope, a Cape Town-based multi-talented digital maker who goes by many labels from designer to developer to casual surfer. With an aim to fill his day with things that inspire him, Rob’s main goal is to have a life in which he has the freedom to only take on things which challenge or offer enjoyment (like surfing). 

Complacency in content comfort

In his career, Rob found that when he was most comfortable in his career, he forgot to challenge himself. It’s “a very dangerous place to be”, as it leads to too much security in business or life; a “safe zone”. To beat the dangers of comfort, he started a Youtube show, one the hardest thing he has done in his life. 

With a deadline set (to avoid procrastinating the launch), his weekly Youtube episodes have been the most difficult, but monumentally rewarding things he has undertaken.

“Most things where I’ve dived in where things are difficult were the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”

Plans are irrelevant but planning is imperative

When it comes to bigger picture thinking versus finer details, it’s crucial to strike the balance of both. If you focus on the macro only, you run the risk of not fine-tuning and releasing a product or service which doesn’t have the quality to be fully marketable. But at the same time, if you only focus on the small details, you can spend far too much time and energy trying to perfect something which might not be used in the way intended.

“It has to be both. My biggest problem is overthinking. Everything changes so radically when you get going and spending that time debating things that probably don’t matter is just a waste of energy. But you can’t know what your product is going to be doing years down the line. So you’ve got to get it out there as light as possible because everything changes as soon as it’s in public.”

Starting a side hustle or taking on a project isn’t actually risky business

Despite what society says, taking the difficult initial step to start a side hustle or take on a new project isn’t actually as risky as it seems. Entrepreneurs, side-hustlers, and makers aren’t that risky by nature. They’re calculated, strategic and make considered decisions. 

There’s possibly more risk-taking (whether it’s of time, energy or finance) than the average person, but they’re not random risks. All possibilities are calculated and cautious with careful thought involved.

A good entrepreneur considers the future ramifications of green-lighting a project or business.

A “Project Graveyard”: A record of failure but also lessons learnt

Rob has a list of projects which never succeeded archived in his ‘Project Graveyard’. He uses this list of failed projects to serve two main purposes:

1. To reflect on the journey of past passion projects and to remember things that have been done, even if they didn’t work out; and

2. To remind others that very few things are quick wins and that success comes from the lessons that failed projects teach.

The failures act as stepping stones to success. The motivation is designing a lifestyle by eliminating things which you don’t like doing and the Project Graveyard represents cutting out what you don’t like and allowing time for things you do like doing. It’s a symbol of every single lesson that aids to future decisions (and successes) you make later down the line.

“Stay humble and focus long-term. It’s about doing daily work consistently over time. For me, this is a lot of failures of projects I thought I might still be working on years down the line. I don’t really believe in the word luck. I get to work on things I enjoy now, and so I don’t see these as ‘failures’ because they helped me get where I am today - a place where I get to do what I want.”

Do you know what success looks like to you? Rob hope does. He goes to great lengths to ensure he has as much freedom every day as possible to work on only th...

Walking the talk: Your actions dictate your intent

If someone wants success, there needs to be a drive to hit that success. Not only are there few quick wins in business, but there are even fewer opportunities of luck to allow a person to thrive without effort. For example, if someone wants to build a billion-dollar business but spends the majority of their time messing around; their intent and their actions don’t really align and that billion-dollar dream is never going to be realised.

However, it’s also extremely important (and healthy) to hit the reset button to refocus and re-energise inspiration.

“But at the same time, it’s important to step away from you do as well. There’s massive value in doing something entirely different to reset from work. Being a maker, and being creative comes from being inspired, and that often comes from being away from the work.”

Different intrigue results in diversity, which leads to a full life

When starting things - whether passion projects, side hustles or businesses - there seems to be a misconception that everything in life has to be associated with it. But the layers of diversity in interests, like hobbies that are completely random and have no direct link to the business you might be building, is imperative in rounding out knowledge. Unique interests lead to interesting people. Not only are different interests crucial in taking a step back to refocus, but they are also important in building a fuller life.

“If we all consume the exact same content, the output would be the same. What makes me unique is probably just a mesh of absolutely everything I’ve done. It’s the bird-watching. It’s travelling. And that’s how you create a rich life.”

If you want to get in touch with Rob or find out more about his journey of success through failure, check out his website or find him on Twitter.