Effortless Thursdays #43: Think you're not enough? You're wrong!
You already have what it takes
Last week I almost pooped my pants.
Not literally, mind you! But I was panicking and struggling to work out how to leave something valuable with the 150+ attendees who had signed up for the Junior Women in Law event I hosted last Thursday evening.
It turns out I didn’t need to poo my pants - even metaphorically.
The event was a success - for me at least. I drew from the wise guidance of my friend, Rick Lewis, and the inspiration he has given me as a Grandmaster of the speaking world. Rick has made Bill Gates laugh and CEOs think, and helps people turn life experiences into inspiring stories. So I told my story.
So as the clock ticked past 7 pm, I got up on stage with my “fun and easy” intention set (taking on board what I shared in Effortless Thursdays #42 by focusing on my desired outcome as an intention, not just as a goal), and started by admitting that I had failed.
I had burnt out when I was about a year and a half or so into my legal career. One day I sat at my desk with my head in my hands not able to do or think any more.
After failure, a confession
Not only did I share my experience of that failure, but I also had a confession to make.
I had taken a poll of the group before the event. The question I asked was: “What’s your biggest challenge at work right now?”.
These were the results:
Looking at the lowest and highest scores, I wondered whether maybe these lawyers were good at handling the shit given to them, but were getting stressed by it?!
Imagine the audience in front of me. A group of smart, high-achievers who weren’t going to take any nonsense. I am an older male speaking in front of an all-women audience. Why should they listen to me?
I could feel the pressure to get to the point and help them solve these challenges straight away.
But I had a confession.
I didn’t have the answers for them.
Now, you might be thinking - “a lawyer who doesn’t have the answer” - that’s a rarity: lawyers always like telling you about how much they know and what the right answer is.
The poll results got me thinking about the stories we tell ourselves.
I’ve noticed that the challenges my clients face often revolve around thinking they’re not enough:
“I don’t have enough confidence”
“I wish I had what it takes to get that promotion!”
“Joy? At work? Yeh, I said goodbye to that ages ago!”
We don’t think we have it within us to succeed. And so, to borrow (loosely) from F. Scott Fitzgerald, we beat on, boats against the current, doubting ourselves ceaselessly into the past.
What happens when we think we’re not enough?
There’s an unusual thing that happens when we think along these lines: we dwell on those things. We draw on all those past reasons why “we couldn’t”, or “we weren’t able”.
Like the best lawyers, we construct watertight arguments convincing ourselves about how lacking we are. How we are not enough.
In those quiet moments to ourselves, our minds wander back to those questions. And before we know it, we’ve convinced ourselves there’s no solution.
The “I don’t have enough confidence” becomes a reality. You don’t get the promotion. The joy remains elusive. And what’s the underlying reason you give yourself?
YOU!
You are the problem!
Sometimes we might be focusing on what we want, instead of what we need.
But what if we turned our attention to what can propel us to success? Things like:
Our strengths
Our values
Our wisdom, and what or who has guided us to success before
Often we don’t see these qualities in ourselves. That’s especially true of high-achievers. The things we do in an instant, which would take someone else an age to even think about, we take for granted. It’s like a customer call centre handler going through their checklist of points to raise on a call: we think “It’s no big deal”.
Sometimes we can be lucky enough for someone to help us see those strengths, values and wisdom in ourselves.
Our veil of self-blindness is pulled back.
What we thought was impossible indeed becomes possible.
Achieving the impossible: you already have what it takes
I see this all the time. When clients have challenges like the ones that came up in the poll, I know they already have the knowledge and skills to solve what seems to them impossible.
It’s almost never the lack of knowledge or skills that’s holding them back. Rather it’s how they apply them - perhaps in a new combination that reveals new possibilities that were previously out of reach.
It’s about unleashing creativity in the way Steve Jobs defined it: simply connecting ideas.
Rather than focusing on what we can’t do, or what’s going wrong, we can, instead, focus our attention on how we can apply the knowledge and skills we have already. After all, there’s always plenty that’s wrong.
It was no different last Monday morning when I was panicking to work out how to run Thursday’s event.
And it was no different for the group of women lawyers that were in front of me that evening.
Instead of me telling everyone about how to manage stress (I mean, how BORING would that have been?), I invited everyone to speak up, to tap into their collective wisdom, and share what worked for them.
Each time I posed a question, several hands would go up, and with that, more questions, more insights, more sparking of new ways of thinking about “impossible” problems.
It was such a joy to see the connection of existing ideas that unleashed this group’s creativity.
After all, as one of the participants had observed, everyone had signed up for a career that was known to be stressful, so it wasn’t realistic to expect the job would have no stress at all.
Possible solutions
As I closed out the discussion, I asked the participants to share one insight they had.
Someone said confidently:
“We can do it!”
I knew they had what it took.
I knew they knew what they needed to do.
All I did was help them see that they could.
And the outcome for me? Well, it was fun and easy.
ps If you’re an entrepreneur, a lawyer or another high-flying professional and want someone to help you see what’s possible and connect your ideas in creative ways so you can build a healthy brain for a career that’s full of success and joy and feels effortless, get in touch and let’s have a conversation.
Over to you!
What insight do you have about your own ability to achieve what you think is impossible?
Here’s more about the Grandmaster of storytelling, Rick Lewis . He writes Pivot to the Podium to help people bring their human spirit to work.
That’s it for this week!
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To your health and success!
Eric
Eric, in my opinion if one thinks one is “not enough” one may be underestimating oneself and have low confidence even if one has the knowledge. It’s normal to not have knowledge and think this way. While people who are knowledgeable may feel this way, Over thinking huge goals may hinder the confidence of being enough. Nice post. Thankyou.
Thanks so much for the shout-out Eric. I absolutely love the approach you took, how you reflected so self-honestly and were able to bring that level of authenticity to the room. It's no surprise at all that you generated so much engagement in the room. And that's how you know that you really served the space. It's a terrific question to focus on for designing a presentation; "How can I get the audience involved in dis-solving their own problem?" So jazzed to hear this tale. Great job. You seem to have managed to scale your strength as a 1-1 coach to a whole room full of people all at once. Impressive.