I know exactly what I'm doing

There was a time when I was impressed with (what I perceived to be) conviction.

People moving forward confidently, without doubt, bustling with self-assuredness and fully convinced of the veracity of their beliefs.

But experience has taught me to be less impressed. In fact, I get nervous, and even suspicious, when someone behaves with such all-knowingness.

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Recently, we had one of our Smarter Egg Network evening workshops. A diverse group of people gathered, enjoyed some good food and great company, and got stuck in to exploring our chosen theme: motivation.

My biggest takeaway from the night was noticing how many people found their views changing over the course of the session. What started off as a sure sense of how they were motivated became a little bit more nuanced as the work progressed.

As the cool people say, tl;dr - what appears simple on the surface becomes more complex under further examination.

*****

We make progress when we are open to evolving with our circumstances. Self-belief and confidence to back ourselves in our endeavours are both useful. 

But when that evolves into feelings of invincibility and fundamentalism, then we're on the wrong road.

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Aodan Enright is an executive coach based in Cork, Ireland. He's also founder of Smarter Egg, a community of professionals who learn from, and inspire each other. You can get thought-provoking articles just like this one sent right to your inbox by signing up here.