Where Success Is Hiding

There’s a sneaky trick our brains love to play on us - which is often reinforced through personal development work, wonderful though it is.

The trick?

Telling us that success is always ‘out there’ somewhere.

That there’s always a ‘better’ version of us. More to be done. More we need to be, have, and do. More to become.

And whilst it’s true that we might want to be, have and do more with our lives - and that IS a wonderful thing - the fact we see it as ‘always out there, somewhere - not accessible YET’ - can be the exact thing that takes away our power in the present moment.

You might have heard me talking a lot about the Inner Critic, recently?

Well, this is one of the more subtle ways it loves to sink its claws in.

Take my singing, for example.

It’s been very much the learner’s journey, and for a long time I mentally cast myself in the role of ‘aspirational’. Not a real singer, not yet.

More to be done. Always a work in progress, not worthy of what I viewed as such a prestigious title.

That wasn’t helped by my earlier experiences of trying to ‘fake it til you make it’ - where I DID start calling myself a professional singer before I had all the skills locked in and still felt like very much the apprentice. That's what all the mindset advice I read told me to do - so I created myself a persona. One that I didn’t and couldn’t live up to.

That was, in hindsight, a really bad plan - and when the knocks came, they burned - probably because they proved what I had known deep down all along - that I wasn't yet fully competent (although now I had embarrassment to keep them company).

The trouble was, later on, it became hard to let go of those knocks - because shame is a powerful thing. And I found I was still telling myself that I wasn’t ready, didn’t have the skills etc., even at a point where I could have started to really own it.

Why?

Well, just in case the knocks came again.

Just in case I was called out, or let myself down, or had something happen that proved I wasn’t really cut out for the title I was claiming.

Because of fear - fear of more shame.

Yep, my Inner Critic latched on to that idea of potential shame and told me there was no way I was ready to take the risk.

Instead, it kept me believing it was safer and easier to set the bar of expectation WAY to high, and play down my skills and the hours of training I’d put in, rather than risk being vulnerable, putting it out there and declaring “I’m ready”. It was easier to stay safe and hide. To stay cosy and comfortable in a nest of 'not yet good enough'.

And I think that’s something we so often do, on that journey to creating what or who we want to be. We hide our true capabilities away, all the while moving that bar higher and higher, edging it further and further out of reach - so we don’t ever have to actually reach out and claim it (and all the potentially scary stuff that might go along with it).

Because what if we do - and it goes wrong?

Well, what if it does?

It goes wrong. We live. We move on. We grow.

There has to come a point, doesn’t there, whereby if we ever want to achieve that success - we have to let it in. We have to be brave. Be vulnerable. Allow ourselves to truly step into owning it. Tell that Inner Critic we've got this, thanks, and we're not afraid.

But maybe along with that claiming that success, it’s ok to allow ourselves to still be the work in progress. Maybe there’s a duality that CAN exist there, after all.

Maybe - just maybe - success doesn’t have to be this ‘pinnacle of perfection’ that we imagine it must be. Because isn’t that an impossible ideal to maintain in anyone’s book?

Maybe you can be good enough - AND allow yourself to be a work in progress, at the same time.

Maybe that's ok.

I wonder what that would change, if you could?

My masterclass, How to Overcome the Inner Critic (and create the success you deserve) is available from 5th November 2024.

Find out more and preorder the download through the link below - OR if you want to join us for the livestream, too, we'd love to have you!

https://www.betterbraincompany.com/post/how-to-overcome-the-inner-critic-and-create-the-success-you-deserve