Start Being Your Best » Learning

Have Faith in People

Jason — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:36:14 +0000

I received an email a few weeks ago from a reader who was looking for some advice. This reader was fairly young, just out of high school, and had purchased a ticket to fly off on a trip. She was looking for some confirmation that she was doing the right thing.

She told me that it wasn’t that she felt like there had been anything wrong in her life up until that point, but she just didn’t get a sense that she’d had any adventure and was feeling kind of unhappy about this. She didn’t want to frame this trip as her “running away from home”, especially since she planned on returning after her trip. However, by the same token, she didn’t want to let any of her friends and family know where she had gone, for fear that they would try to stop her.

Our fair reader was concerned as to how her family would react to finding a note in her bed the morning that she left, and whether it would ruin their relationship when she returned. On the other hand, she didn’t want want folks discouraging her from going. ”What should I do?” was the gist of her email.

I told her that she needed to tell her parents, because it would be very traumatic for any parent to be in that situation. I know I’d lose it if my son ever did something like that when he grew up. I wouldn’t be angry, though. After I’d gotten over the initial shock, I’d just be hurt that he didn’t feel like he could trust me to support him.

So many times in life, we miss out on opportunities to find people who can support us in what we want to do because we’re too scared to let them know. Whether it be through fear of ridicule or anger, we just don’t want to make an effort to share what’s really important to us. Opening up like that is hard.

I know that there have been times in my life where I’ve been faced with a situation where I just KNEW I was supposed to tell someone about something I was planning on doing, but was hesitant to be open with them. Every time I’ve fought the fear and did it anyway, it worked out for the best. I’ve found support and encouragement, and even some concrete assistance in what I’ve wanted to accomplish.

Have faith in people. Trust that the vast majority of folks around you care about you and want you to do what is best for YOU. If you find some that don’t have your best interests at heart, just ignore them and move on. But the vast majority of times, you find people dying to share in your Story and willing to do whatever they can to make it better.

Photo courtesy: MarinaAvila

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Stop Blaming Others

Jason — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:10:44 +0000

I was reading some announcements about the retirement of Randy Johnson today. For those of you who don’t know, Randy Johnson is at least in the conversation, if not the front-runner, for the greatest left handed pitcher of all time in baseball. Don’t worry, this isn’t a baseball post.

One of the reactions I read was from a writer by the name of Jeff Pearlman. I used to read Pearlman consistently, but this post shows why I stopped. It’s whiny and condescending, and blames another person just for being who they are. The complaint isn’t germane to Johnson retiring and seems needlessly petty and confrontational. Pearlman does this a lot.

Was Johnson a jerk on the days he pitched? From everything I’ve heard, he definitely could be. Does that really matter? Nope. Why did Pearlman feel like he needed to say this? I have no idea.

I see a lot of people (and I’ve been guilty of it myself) who will deflect blame onto someone else, even when there really isn’t any blame to be had. Be it through petty sniping behind someone’s back, passive-aggressive statements toward people we don’t enjoy being around, or through some other means, criticism and complaining doesn’t solve any problems. It may make you feel better, but it’s not going to make anything actually be better.

Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying, “The Buck Stops Here”. This statement has become almost ubiquitous in our society, but the actual meaning is often ignored.

You, and I, and everyone else we come into contact with is responsible for one thing, and one thing only: our response to circumstances. We can’t control how other’s act, or what Life dumps in our paths. What we can control is how we react to it. We can handle things with dignity and grace, and rise above the mud, or we can wallow in it with the other pigs. It’s as simple as that.

When we react defensively, or out of spite or envy toward someone else, we’re really showing how little we trust ourselves to be able to solve our own problems. We demonstrate that we have no faith in being able to rise above, that we’re content to be mired in our situations, and that we don’t have the initiative or drive to solve a problem ourselves (or find someone who can provide support in doing so).

Take charge of your own life by refusing to allow negative circumstances to turn you into a whiner. Don’t be Jeff Pearlman. Be Harry Truman.

Photo courtesy: The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum

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Your Environment Impacts Your Creativity

Jason — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:00:15 +0000

One of the early topics I was planning to cover on this blog was the matter of creativity. Because I felt like such a frustrated creative myself, I wanted to do a study of different ways of expressing one’s self; perhaps so that I could find an outlet I hadn’t previously considered for myself beyond the typical poetry, painting, short stories, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with those pursuits; I just don’t happen to be very talented in any of them.

Of course, I ended up writing a lot more about leadership and general self-improvement topics, and haven’t really dealt too much with creativity specifically since the very early days of Start Being Your Best.

However, I still believe that developing one’s creativity is a great method of self-improvement. I would suggest it to anyone.

I like to think of this blog as “creative non-fiction”. Although I’m not creating in the sense of “world-building” for a novel, or translating my sensations from viewing a sunrise into a piece of music, I still see what I do as an act of creation. I bring up a topic and address it in a way that is (hopefully) novel and (again, hopefully) meaningful to other people as well as myself.

In the course of reading about the creative process, I came upon a work by a professor named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I’m sure you’ve heard of one of his works, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. In it, he gives a synopsis of the state talented people find themselves in when working in their area of expertise. Athletes call it being “in the zone”.

As a follow up to this work, he wrote another book entitled Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. It’s based on a series of interviews that came from his studies into the state of Flow. He interviewed many experts in creative fields and tried to determine what traits they shared, in order to see if he could pin-point a common list of attributes that may have contributed to their having become great at what they do.

One of the areas of Creativity deals with external factors. While much of creativity seems to be linked to genetics (intelligence in all its various forms, etc.), there seems to be a strong link between the environment in which a person finds themselves and how creative they are.

Csikszentmihalyi claims that environments themselves can inspire creativity in people. You need to be in the right place for you in order to be optimally effective at the task you’re trying to accomplish.

You need to be in the right place geographically. A big factor in creativity is synergizing two or more disparate issues to create something better. In order for this to occur, you need to first be exposed to novel stimulations. Stimuli are not evenly distributed over the surface of this planet. In general, you will run into more unique situations, people, and things while in New York than somewhere in South Dakota. Not because New York is better, but because there are just more situations, people and things in general.

Secondly, you need to be in an environment of your own creation. It can be as small as hanging a picture or putting a plant in your cubicle at work, but you need to do something to make your environment work for you. Not everyone is going to like plants in their cubicles, but you get the idea, right? Do something to make your space feel like your space.

You have to figure out what brings out the creativity in you through trial and error. Once you’ve found that, figure out a way to make it portable. Find a way to transfer that feeling to wherever you go. You should feel at home the same way you feel at work from an environmental standpoint. Don’t allow one place or another where you spend large amounts of time to limit your ability to think and act creatively.

Essentially, what we need to do in order to create is to find the place where we feel more “ourselves” than anywhere else. It’s not going to be the same for everyone, but in order to ensure that you do everything you do to the best of your abilities, you need to zero in on that feeling.

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5 Reasons to Learn a Foreign Language, and 2 Selfless Ways to Do It

Jason — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:26 +0000

Back in 2001, I joined the Army. I did this because of 9/11. However, I knew I wasn’t going to just take any old job they wanted me to take. I specifically wanted to be a linguist.

I had always heard that the US military had one of the best language schools in the world, providing “full immersion” training (language instruction in the native language, for those who aren’t familiar with the term “immersion”). It’s as close as you can get to learning in a foreign country without actually being there.

So, after 16 months of 7 hours a day training, I graduated as a qualified Chinese Mandarin linguist, having passed the Defense Language Proficiency Test.

Learning a second language is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. But it’s been absolutely wonderful for my personal development, even though there were many times when I wasn’t too happy about the choice I’d made to do it. Here are 5 reasons why I would suggest EVERYONE attempt to learn a language other than your native one.

1. Another tool in your toolbox. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re the entrepreneurial sort, or someone who draws a paycheck. Knowing a foreign language makes you more attractive to potential employers/clients. It opens up new opportunities for you to assist in ways that you simply couldn’t without being multi-lingual.

But, it’s first and foremost another way to serve others. Because I speak another language, I’ve had the opportunity to communicate with people that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. It’s allowed me to help them get to where they needed to go. Would they have figured it out on their own? Yeah, probably. Was it nice for them to get to speak to someone in their own language (albeit stuttering ol’ me) in a foreign country that seemed to be confusing to them? You bet it was. You should have seen their faces light up when they heard a white guy speak Mandarin. Priceless.

2. Develop discipline. Language learning requires effort every single day. It’s not something you can pick up with two lessons a week. Understanding how to develop a habit of consistency, and why it’s so important, is the single greatest lesson I discovered as I was going through language school. I can say honestly that the only reason I got any discipline at all from the military was because I went to language school.

3. Expanded horizons, for you and others. Learning a new language requires you to learn something about another culture. Some cultures are more foreign than others, but every single one does at least one thing differently than what you’re used to. By taking the time and effort to understand a certain idiom or mannerism necessary to communicate effectively in a new language, you open your eyes to new experiences.

Additionally, you’re going to meet people that don’t think the same way you do. The process of learning a language allows you to ask all kinds of questions that may be taboo in another culture, or simply not often questioned. The exchange of ideas, and the necessity to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, provides a growth opportunity for both parties. Is this going to solve world hunger, or the nuclear weapons problem? Not hardly. But it can make a big difference in your life, and in the life of the person you’re speaking with.

4. Gain confidence. Speaking to someone new has always been difficult for me. Speaking with someone new in a new language, well… that’s exponentially harder. I’m still much better at understanding spoken Mandarin than I am at speaking it myself.

But speaking up in a foreign language, especially when you’re still learning, forces you to become okay with failure. Not that you accept it as the final end state, but that you realize it’s not going to kill you. I can’t tell you how many times my teachers, let alone people on the street in China, cracked up at me when I tried to say something. But, every single time, even the people who weren’t being paid to instruct me taught me how to say something properly. I thanked them for their help and went on my way, perhaps having learned a new phrase.

I found out that people weren’t looking to pounce on me when I screwed up. Sure, I got laughed at, but it wasn’t mean-spirited. It was simply funny (sometimes really funny, depending on how badly I mangled a phrase). We had a good chuckle, and then moved on. I learned that you’re never going to be perfect, so why worry about it? Just do what you’re going to do, and fix it as you go along.

5. Do something difficult. Sometimes, it’s worth doing something hard simply for the sake of doing something hard. As my dad used to say, “It builds character”. And, “You’ll thank me for this one day”. And, “It’ll be over before you’re married”. I especially hated that last one, and it wasn’t even true in the case of language school.

But, looking back, he was right. Doing stuff that’s not a lot of fun simply because it’s the right thing to do is sometimes a good enough reason. Because it’s difficult, you have to look for long-term benefits, rather than short-term gratifications. Sublimating your desires is a key component in personal development, whether we want to admit it or not.

Now, doing what I did to learn a language isn’t exactly the most traditional path. I’m not suggesting someone join the military for solely this purpose. In fact, I think that’s a really BAD idea.

However, if you want to learn a language, and you want to do something great for someone else at the same time, here are two ways to do it:

1. Join the Peace Corps (or some other similar organization). If you’re a member of an evangelical religion, you can volunteer to do a long-term mission trip with one of countless organizations that offer language instruction as part of their training programs. For those of you who aren’t, the Peace Corps does a lot of good things for the poorest of the poor. From my understanding, you don’t have much of a choice in where you end up, but if you just want to do something that will truly impact people on a personal level, I can’t think of a better way to do it than through volunteer (or very low-paid) aid work.

2. Trade English lessons for other lessons. My wife heads up a language program with refugees, where volunteers take time to practice English conversation skills with those folks who’ve recently arrived in our country. I’m not aware of anyone taking the next logical step from these programs and offering tutoring in English in exchange for foreign language tutoring.

However, if you’re interested in helping out folks who need a helping hand, this would work on a couple of levels. First of all, you’re providing a valuable skill to a refugee (or anyone in this country who doesn’t know the language well) simply by doing something you already do well: talk.

Secondly, you’re allowing these folks the opportunity to serve, as well. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with some refugees who feel as though they’re not contributing to society, and due to visa/Social Security/other issues, aren’t even allowed to do so. Learning from them can give a feeling of pride to someone who may desperately need one.

So, if you don’t speak more than one language, I’d encourage you to pick one up. If you’re already multi-lingual, I’d encourage you to learn another. In our increasingly small world, you’ll be glad you did.

What are some unique methods or experiences you’ve encountered that have allowed you to learn new skills? Are there any other ways you can think of to simultaneously learn a skill and improve other’s lives? Share them with us in the comments…

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Develop Your Reputation

Jason — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:00:03 +0000

A few months ago, I posted a bit of a rant called “Return to Decency“. It was motivated by a couple of negative experiences I’d had with some folks who were younger than me. Even in the age group that I’m a part of, it seems some folks weren’t trained how to relate to other people, especially in a professional environment.

I complained about my frustration, but didn’t really provide any suggestions as to how to make things better. Thinking about it now, it occurs to me that it’s not that these folks know what to do, and don’t do it. It’s entirely possible that many folks who give off a negative impression in the workplace honestly don’t know that they’re doing anything wrong.

So, here are some key issues that need to be addressed:

1. Show respect. This means not being overly familiar, keeping your personal and professional life separate, and using generally good manners. This is especially important if you work in the service or retail industries, or anywhere else where you interact with customers frequently. Remember, not everyone wants their server to sit down at the table with them in a restaurant (as an example).

Should the customers be a little less sensitive? Probably. But, you can’t expect them to adjust their standards simply because “people don’t act that way anymore”. You need to adjust the manner in which you act in order to make others feel comfortable. Otherwise, you’ll prove a point (“I can act how I want, no one will tell me what to do!”), but you certainly won’t make a sale.

2. Show up on time. Your boss probably doesn’t care if you were out late with your friends, or forgot to set your alarm. Your customers don’t care that you couldn’t find the location where you planned to meet.

Time isn’t a fluid concept, so you need to be where you say you’re going to be, when you’ve agreed to be there. It is not okay to be late, even by five minutes. That’s just the way it is. If you’re habitually running late, you demonstrate that you don’t value the other person’s time. It will impact their opinion of you.

3. Show initiative. People appreciate employees or service providers that make an effort to “over-deliver”. Do everything that’s asked of you. Also try to do things that weren’t asked of you, but that you know would make the recipient happy.

What these all have in common is putting the needs of others before your own. You need to constantly consider how your actions impact other people, which is what I believe is lacking all too often today. It’s not always about you.

I’m not trying to call anyone out in particular here. Feel free to mention anything I forgot in the comments…

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The Head vs. The Heart

Jason — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:00:57 +0000

Read an outstanding article in the Atlantic magazine entitled What Makes Us Happy? the other day. I mean, this was really interesting.

It was about a researcher, George Vaillant, who had devoted his entire career to a study conducted at Harvard. He and his team followed a group of men who had graduated from Harvard during the 1930′s. They watched their lives to determine, essentially, whether or not there is a formula for success.

What interested me even more than the findings of the study (which were very fascinating) was the study of Vaillant’s life that occurs in this article. The man was married four times, to three different women. He had strained relationships with his children.

This man, who devoted his life to the study of the lives of others in order to discern what brings about happiness and success, seemed unable to apply this information in his own life. He can dispense knowledge from a lifetime of experience and study, but he doesn’t necessarily take his own advice.

What does this mean for you and I? I think there are a couple of key take-aways from this:

1. Everyone we come into contact with has the potential to teach us something. The study has followed 268 men for over 72 years now. The only thing they had in common is they all graduated from Harvard during a three-year time span in the late 1930′s. Some ended up wealthy, healthy, married for 60+ years and surrounded by family members throughout their lives. Others literally fell down while drunk and died.

All of these men had something to teach the researchers. Maybe some taught them things TO do, and others taught them what NOT to do, but each life was instructional.

We need to keep our eyes, ears and minds open to every person we meet, regardless of their circumstances or outward appearance. EVERYONE has something to teach.

2. It’s not about knowledge, it’s about action. All this knowledge about the mechanics and traits of success couldn’t keep Vaillant from multiple marriages and strained relationships.

He obviously had to know what the key indicators were for what society would generally term “success” and “failure”. More than almost anyone else, he had the ability to capitalize on other people’s experience to make a life for himself that most would be jealous of.

And yet, it didn’t mean a thing because he didn’t apply the lessons he learned. He admits that there is a disconnect between what he studied and how he lived.

Knowledge that comes from the head is great. But it takes more than that to motivate us to action. It takes an emotional decision from the heart to apply that knowledge that really makes us grow.

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5 Ways to Develop Yourself While Traveling

Jason — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:00:17 +0000

Some of you may remember that I mentioned I was heading on vacation this past week. You’re actually reading this on my first day back from a week in Iceland with my wife (which was awesome, thanks for asking).

Travel can be one of the best activities you can do for personal development purposes.

Travel can bring self-reliance when you have none
Travel forces you to be out of your comfort zone
Travel helps you realize that not everyone thinks like you do, and provides opportunities to learn from different viewpoints

Traveling can also be one of the most stressful things you ever do. It can very easily cause you to lose sight of your personal development plan. Because all of the positives listed above can also become negatives. It’s quite a fine line to tread. If you want your next trip to help you become a better person, follow these tips:

Travel alone. I don’t want to sound condescending here, but this is especially for younger people who’ve never spent much time away from home. Traveling by yourself is a definite character builder. You set your own schedule, you decide what you want to do, you call all the shots. You are forced to make decisions that may otherwise be made for you (by parents, friends, or other people in authority). In a manner of speaking, you develop goals for yourself through your travels and achieving them is solely dependent on your effort.
If you don’t travel alone, at least try to travel with people you don’t know. Traveling with friends can be fun, no question about it. You’re comfortable, you know each other’s quirks, and you generally get along well together. While enjoyable, this won’t develop much self-reliance or independence. If you join a tour group, however, you’ve often thrown together with people you don’t know, who come from different walks of life, and who have different reasons for traveling. It’s possible that no one has any more noble motive for the trip than it just sounded like fun. However, you may uncover stories that influence you or lead you to find a passion that you never knew you had.
Make an effort to know the natives. Make an effort to engage folks who live where you are, no matter how rudimentary that effort may be, due to language issues. Use sign language and gestures to get your point across. Buy a phrase book or two-way dictionary and try to speak a little bit of their language. Some folks may laugh; that’s not necessarily because you said something incorrectly. They may just be shocked that you even tried! If you go out of your way to be pleasent to people, they’ll most likely be pleasent back. This can lead to plenty of serendipities.
Be fluid. Because sometimes “being flexible” is just too rigid. We’ve all heard that traveling develops patience, right? There will be times when your patience is tried, and then there will be times when it seems like the whole world is conspiring against you. You need to decide before you’re in the heat of the moment how you’ll react. Take some time before you leave to make a detailed plan of what you want to accomplish. Make it as detailed as you can stand (some of you may want to plan down to the hour). Once you’ve done that, take a good look at that plan and determine the absolute worst thing that could occur to derail those plans. This is the situation you REALLY need to plan for. Once you’ve done that, and it doesn’t occur, you can just smile at anything else that happens. If it does happen, well, then you’ll be happy you planned for it, won’t you?
Take time to reflect while you’re on the road. Don’t spend all your time thinking about what’s coming next. Try to spend some time thinking about what you just did in the past hour or day. This is a particularly good time to begin a journal if you don’t have one. If you do, try to do it consistenly on the trip. Record what you did and any reactions you have to it, interesting things that occurred while you were doing it, or lessons learned from it.

The goal you should be shooting for is two-fold. Firstly, you want to have an enjoyable trip that creates memories you have for the rest of your life. Secondly, you want to create an environment where you’re intentionally trying to develop your character and continue on your personal development journey. Any and every situation you find yourself in can bring about growth, but when so much is brand new, the chance to grow is just that much greater.

What are some of your best travel experiences? What are some of the worst? We learn from both ends of the spectrum; what did you learn? Let us know in the comments…

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Don’t Act Fast, Act Right

Jason — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:00:12 +0000

When times are tough, people feel a need to seize any opportunity that they see. Whether it be a job for the unemployed or a sale at the grocery store, scarcity prompts us to act quickly. That’s just human nature.

More often than not, this is a bad choice.

Because of our inability to mentally separate ourselves from our circumstances, we view most situations as more dire than they really are. We generally have a lot more time to think through a decision than we assume.

Most of the challenges we encounter in our lives stem from events or conditions that we’ve never experienced before. If we’d been in the situation before, we’d know how to deal with it, right?

Because these instances are novel, and because we have an internal drive to not miss the boat, we’ll often make a decision without examining all the facts.

This can lead us into further difficulties, if we’re unlucky.

Rather than acting quickly, we need to act intelligently. I’m trying to adopt the following framework for decision making, because I feel like I’ve been too impulsive in the past.

1. Pay attention. Really look at the situation from all angles. For instance, I bought a house a year and a half ago. I convinced myself that it was a good time to buy, but it was really because I had become impatient and didn’t want to sign another year long lease at my then-current residence.

I didn’t spend any time thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, or how the purchase of a home would impact that. I didn’t consider the macroeconomic environment at all, either. Had I really thought through some of these issues, and discussed them with more people, I might have made a different decision.

2. Put all the pieces together. Once you’ve really analyzed your challenge, and the environment in which it’s occurring, then you need to understand what you’ve discovered.

I’m a big proponent of making lists. I think it helps to get the ideas that are swirling around in your mind pinned down on a sheet of paper. Make a list of pros and cons. Talk about your situation with people you respect, and get their feedback. In my case, I could have sat down with my wife and discussed what it really was that we wanted to do with our lives, and if owning a home really fit into that plan. I could have talked to friends of mine who were mortgage brokers and who keep an eye on the economy pretty closely, to determine if this was a good time to buy, or if we should wait.

Make sure you get multiple inputs from a range of sources. Don’t limit yourself to one viewpoint.

3. Act. Once you’ve got all this information pulled together, only then can you make a sound decision. Once you’ve made your decision, act on it.

However, as you’re acting, continue to monitor the situation as was discussed in step 1. Your actions will cause ripple effects, which will generate new data. This data needs to be analyzed in the light of everything else you’ve gathered up until now. If the new data begins to prompt you to rethink you initial decision, don’t be too stubborn to change course.

Impatience is one of my biggest faults. If you’re anything like me, you should probably think about adopting this framework for making decisions, as well. The potential is there for you to miss a chance or two because you weren’t willing to make a snap decision. However, I’m sure you’ll end up much happier with the decisions you do make.

How do you make important choices? Is your framework something like mine, or do you do something different? Let us know in the comments…

Photo courtesy: imjoshdotcom

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Credit Where It’s Due

Jason — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:00:22 +0000

I’ve spent the month of August up to my eyeballs at work. Normally, my work life is fairly laid back. By that, I mean that I’m usually out the door by 5, or very soon thereafter. I don’t have to check my email at night or keep tabs on what’s going on all the time. It’s a pretty good job in that respect.

However, as I said, I’ve been super busy lately (for me). Working till 7 or 8 o’clock a few times, doing stuff on the weekends. I’m not saying this for pity; I know a lot of folks that do this regularly. It’s just been quite a change for me.

I’ve been working on a project that’s very important to the company. It’s much bigger than anything I’ve ever worked on before, and I’ve been given a lot of leeway to do things the way I see fit. As such, I feel a tremendous sense of ownership and a certain amount of pride.

So, when the sum of a month’s effort is rolled into a presentation delivered to the company’s COO and the financials weren’t so much as even questioned, I was a little irritated. I mean, this was important to me, and it seemed as though no one even realized it was there. I know I should have been happy that the project was over, and that the business plan was approved, but I couldn’t help wanting a little pat on the back.

So, I posted the tweet you see above when I got back to my desk. Had a few people make some comments about “keep your head up” and all that, including one by my friend Tim Brownson.

He and I got to tweeting about it, and I confessed that I wasn’t happy that my work wasn’t acknowledged. He came back with the following, which went immediately into my “Favorites”:

Tim skipped an “o” in “other”, but his message hit me like a ton of bricks.

Aren’t I always griping about my job not being “fulfilling” when I’m not doing something important? But when I get to do something that I KNOW was quality work, that tested my abilities and proved my value to the company, I find something else to get upset about. Talk about hard to please, right?

Why do I care if I get applauded? Shouldn’t grown ups do what they do just because they know they should do it? If I needed constant affirmation every time I did my job, then I’m kind of missing the point, aren’t I? Even if you’re one of those people who hates their job (or just feels like you’re a round peg in a square hole, like me), shouldn’t your pride and integrity be enough to motivate you?

Interestingly enough, a few hours after I tweeted about this, the director of the project I had worked on talked to me in front of my boss and told both of us what a good job I did. Man, did I feel like a tool.

So, from now on, I’m just going to do what I know I’m supposed to do. I know that one of my big challenges in life is approval seeking, but it helps to be reminded of it every once in a while by someone besides myself, you know? As long as I can honestly say that I did a good job, and contributed to the success of the team, then that should be okay. I firmly believe that, if you do a good job, the recognition will come (and it did for me the very same day).

Ever been in a situation where you felt you didn’t get the credit you deserved? How did you deal with that? Let us know in the comments…

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Fakin’ it

Jason — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve got something that I need to admit to everyone reading this. I’m a fake.

I constantly fail at putting into practice what I preach on this blog. Ask my wife.

Not just that, but there are times when I feel as though I fake my way through just about everything in life.

At work, I’m constantly amazed that I’m considered the expert when it comes to finance, and that I’m asked to give opinions on “what the numbers mean for the business”. I majored in philosophy, for cryin’ out loud! What do I know about finance?

At home, I have a two and a half year old son that I’m expected to be a father to. A father! Me! I’m barely responsible enough to take care of a dog, let alone a kid.

This really boils down to an inferiority complex. I feel like I somehow woke up one day and was stuck in the movie Big. Deep down inside, it feels like I’m just a kid playing dress up. I’m scared that someone’s going to figure it out one day, you know?

It’s also symptomatic of a person who feels that who s/he is on the outside isn’t quite matching up with who s/he is on the inside. I feel that I’m somehow being inauthentic.

I can’t believe I’m alone in this. I’m sure there have to be others out there who feel the same way. I just wanted to speak up and let you know that there’s someone else who feels it, too.

To a certain extent, this feeling is good. It can keep us motivated to continue to improve. We can channel the fear into overcoming inertia and developing more skills. The problems come when we start listening to the little voice in our heads that’s telling us we’ll never live up to expectations.

I don’t know if we can ever truly escape this feeling, but there are ways to own it.

1. Admit it. You don’t need to go around telling people you feel like this (unless you’re me, apparently), but you do need to admit it to yourself. When you start feeling like you’ve got everything figured out, you’ll get complacent. You won’t continue to press forward and work on the areas in your life that need work.

2. Realize you can’t fake everyone out. What I mean by that is, you couldn’t possibly have fooled everyone you’ve come into contact with. Somewhere along the line, your actions and decisions demonstrated to others that you belong in the position you’re in. If I weren’t at least a moderately competent financial analyst, people wouldn’t ask my for my opinion on what the numbers mean. The same goes for you, too. Whether or not you believe in yourself, someone else does.

3. Stick up for yourself. I know that there have been a lot of times when people have challenged my assertions, and it turns out that they were wrong, not me. Just today, in fact, I had someone a few levels above me in the food chain challenge some of my work. Naturally, the little voice inside piped up and said, “Look, you goofed up! Someone finally caught you!”. Thing was, I knew I was right, and I was able to calm them down and talk through the project I had provided. I eventually showed them what was wrong with their assumptions. I’m not saying it’s always like that, because it’s not. But you need to have faith in yourself.

If you know you’re right, stick to your guns.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Conversely, there have been many more times when I didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was doing, and I had to go ask someone for help. Either to my boss to clarify some requirements, or to co-workers who’ve been doing the job a lot longer than I have. Every time I have to do this, I absolutely hate it. I don’t want to admit that I don’t know what’s going on, because I’m worried people are going to lose trust in my abilities.

I think of it like this: the risk of looking stupid when asking to clarify something is a lot lower than the risk of completing a project without knowing what the requirements are. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who expects me to understand everything I’m ever told, without questions, on the first go. You probably haven’t met too many of them, either.

I’m not saying this feeling will ever go away. It might when you’re old(er), I don’t know (if you are old(er) and can confirm or deny, leave a comment, would you?). The thing is, this blog’s about personal development, not personal perfection. We’re all just striving to get better.

Edit: I’ve linked this before, but it’s still true.

Photo courtesy: WordRidden

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