The time-wasting career mistake I don’t want you to make
Don’t mix up performance 📊 and positioning ♟️
Performance and positioning are two separate factors in your career.
Performance is everything YOU do. It’s your skill, your experience, your persistence, your creativity, your drive, your hard work, etc. etc.
Positioning is the external environment you’re working within.
It’s your boss’s opinion of you — Are they your sponsor and champion, or do they think you’re just average?
It’s the projects you work on — Are they high-priority within the company, or tiny initiatives no one cares about?
It’s the structure you’re operating within — Are the teams you work with cooperative and helpful, or do they block you at every turn?
It’s the processes you have to follow — Do you have to explain and justify every little thing you do, or are you given space to run?
It’s the culture you’re in — Are the things you’re good at also the things the company values, or are your skills just “nice to have” in this particular space?
If performance is the diamond 💎
Positioning is the setting 💍
And the same diamond can shine and sparkle in one setting and look dull and lackluster in another.
And the crucial, time-wasting mistake that I don’t want you to make is this—
Don’t try to fix bad positioning with better performance.
It will be SO tempting to try to do this.
Because bad positioning will make it LOOK like you have bad performance.
You do the same work you’ve always done…but where your old boss used to be impressed, your new boss just shrugs.
You’re working so hard to try to get the project over the finish line…but it misses the deadline because other teams didn’t do their work on time.
You’re knocking it out of the park with everything you work on…but it doesn’t lead to a promotion because you’ve been working on low-priority initiatives no one has heard of instead of one headline-making high-priority project.
High-stress high achievers are PROS at internalizing blame instead of externalizing it.
They are so good at asking “What more could I have done?” and they often forget to ask “How was I not set up for success?”
And this is an awesome trait in many circumstances.
You take radical responsibility for getting things done. You take complete ownership over any task you’re given. People freaking LOVE having you on their team.
But the drawback of this awesome trait is that it makes you stay for too long in bad-fit environments.
You waste too much time and effort trying to solve bad positioning with better performance…
Instead of just fixing your positioning and putting yourself in a setting where your diamond can shine.
Some people in this situation will see this, it will instantly click, and they’ll just get to work fixing their positioning problem.
Some people in this situation will see this, they’ll say “That makes a ton of sense. I should probably do that,” and then they’ll run into mental blockers.
Your brain might tell you: “But is it really a positioning problem? You’re probably just complaining. Work harder.”
Or it might tell you: “This is so embarrassing, that you ended up in this situation. No one else has this problem. What’s wrong with you?”
Or it might tell you: “No place in the world has the positioning I’m looking for. It’s a lost cause. Stop being childish.”
If your brain is telling you any of these things…
Or if it’s giving you any other mental blocker, where you can feel that you really need to fix your positioning, but you also feel a lot of resistance or fear about doing so…
I want you to come talk to me.
This is exactly the kind of situation I help my clients work through.
I don’t just know how to diagnose this problem. I also know how to solve it.
Come talk to me to find out how.
What my clients have to say…
“I feel less helplessness. There's so much more that's in my control, in terms of taking the next step or making a decision. And that makes me feel more optimistic and confident in my decision making. I just feel more at ease.”
—Client | VP - Global Product, Visa
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