In a competitive environment, everyone’s out to prove themselves. But when everyone is scrambling for the higher ground, it creates a culture of fear. And fear breeds scarcity. If one executive gets a promotion, it’s necessarily at the expense of someone else. The prevailing mood is that there’s simply not enough to go around.
I coach executives who ‘re ambitious and driven. They know that proving is endemic in executive and professional circles: “I need to prove my value. Provide tangible evidence that I’m worthy of that new position.”
With this assumption in place, what follows is over-working, over-striving and people pleasing. Value is then measured in deliverables, numbers and outcomes.
There’s nothing wrong in measuring outcomes in this way. The problem only arises when you measure yourself by those standards. When your worthiness is rooted in whether or not you’ve met the objective goal of the organization, you make yourself vulnerable to the prevailing winds of the firm. Worse, you begin to feel less capable – and this is never true!
Proving mode results in something else that hurts the bottom line of an organization. It shuts down the capacity to grow leaders who can make organizations thrive. If you’re looking for a C-Suite position, you want to be self-aware and have well-developed emotional skills. But the scarcity inherent in proving mode puts you into survival. Fight, flight, freeze syphons off all your best inner resources for creative, intuitive and human-centered interactions.
Proving is excessively intellectual. Without access to intuition and emotional intelligence to balance your thinking, you lose perspective. You become shut off from the excellent information found in a wider and calmer way of being.
Being
Being is presence. It’s the awareness of what’s in front of you and inside of you.
In this mode, you’re fully aware of yourself in the context you’re in. Your ego takes a back seat to this awareness because there’s nothing to win or to achieve. You’re able to connect with every part of your physical experience, your breath and your internal states – every bit as much as you’re aware of your thinking.
In short, Being is awareness itself.
If Proving is intellectual, then Being is experiential.
Try it on for a moment.
What happens when you become very present?
Where does your attention go?
What else do you notice?
How are you feeling about yourself?
Your potential?
You might have noticed that full presence has an absence of judgment. Your value and worth simply exist. In essence, your experience of the moment makes you part of life. Like you belong. No questions asked.
There is a deep-rooted connection that is unassailable.
How does Being mode move you toward your goals?
How do you stand out if you relax back into Being mode when you’re an ambitious executive?
Being is very active. It’s not at all passive.
Inhabiting your Being supports you in taking mindful actions. You’ll be seen as an asset to any organization when you show up calm, clear and strategic rather than proving, striving or climbing.
In Being mode, you’ll have a neutral relationship with your feelings. You’ll be more strategic with the vast information Being affords you. And you’ll be more adaptable with the challenges you face.
In Being mode, you’re aware of the truth of your universal belonging.
It’s that belonging that changes your relationship to your feelings. They become simply the weather patterns of the moment. Feelings come, they are felt and they move on. And you’ll allow the emotional colour of the moment because you trust yourself to deal with this temporary and informative experience.
In this way, Being mode supports you in being much more strategic in working toward your goals. You have access to a neutral view of the situation. You’re better able to intuit, clue into and understand what a strategic response would be in any situation. You’ll take mindful actions, not reactive and habitual ones.
As you practice Being mode every day, little by little, you’ll be seen as a trusted leader – in charge, self-aware and adaptable. And you’ll begin to see yourself more and more as the solution to whatever you face.
Getting things done is important too!
But how you get them done makes all the difference to how you feel about yourself. Chasing a version of happiness that you believe is in the hands of someone else, someone you have to prove to, will put you into ‘lack’.
Enjoying the fullness of your learning (and achieving) reinforces what you already have. Suddenly, you’re in abundance. You have enough time, enough resources, enough talent. Your achievement will not be at the expense of yourself and your best assets.
Proving is about knowledge. Being is about so much more. It’s about you.
If you want to rise in your career and stand out, be yourself. Learn to lean into the fullness of who you are. Allow yourself to be seen as powerfully effective, not just because of what you know but because of your command of yourself.
It’s a habit of mind to assume that the only way to get ahead is to prove yourself, excel over others. It’s just a habit. It’s not true or better. And it’s not the only way to get things done. Think of the Being mode as how you get them done.
Getting somewhere in your career begins with being right here. Right now. Everything you need is right in this moment.
Whatever your career aspirations, choose Being over Proving and you’ll have access to a richness of information that will guide you.
And you’ll stand out because you’re even-tempered, clear and consistent.
Confidence
