Why working harder isn’t making you feel better
Tell me if you ever go through this sequence of events.
You sit down to work. You open your laptop and see all your emails, documents, Slack messages, calendar, etc. etc.
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As you look at your work, your brain gives you this thought: “I’m not qualified to do this. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m one misstep away from being found out as a fraud.”
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This thought creates a surge of fear within you. Or anxiety, or stress, or inadequacy, or overwhelm, or any other emotion in the “fear” family.
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This fear drives you to work harder. You prep extra. You do more research. You prepare for more scenarios. You double-check everything. You work late into the night.
So far, it doesn’t seem like there’s a problem.
I mean, yeah, feeling fearful and stressed the entire time you work isn’t super pleasant…
But hey, it’s driving you to work harder!
Surely, all that hard work will eventually make you feel like you know what you’re doing and resolve your fear!
But here is the question I want you to ask yourself…
How do you feel after you put in all that extra work?
After that day of fear-fueled extra hard work is over…
Does your brain now believe that you ARE qualified to do your job, that you DO know what you’re doing, and that you DO belong firmly, right here?
Or, does it tell you one of the two following things?
Either: “Here’s what you didn’t do well today. You’re behind on this. You didn’t know how to handle that. You flubbed this, and everyone noticed. You screwed that up too. Yep, you definitely don’t know what you’re doing.”
Or: “Okay, you did do a good job today…in spite of being unqualified. You barely made it. You managed to keep everyone fooled for one more day. That was just lucky. Better stay alert tomorrow though — you’re still one mistake away from being revealed as a fraud.”
Really pause and notice this.
You worked all day in an attempt to try to feel better.
You worked all day in an attempt to try to feel like you belong here and you know what you’re doing and you’re not a fraud.
And at the end of the day… It. Didn’t. Work.
All that fear-fueled extra hard work did NOT make you feel more qualified or less fearful.
Your brain (in 100% good faith!) suggested a strategy to make you feel better.
But when you checked in at the end of the day, that strategy did not work.
And here’s why.
When you sat down to work and looked at all your emails and documents and calendar invites and Slack messages…
It’s not that you were actually not qualified to do your job.
It’s that your brain went into “I’m not qualified” Mode.
And when your brain is in “I’m not qualified” Mode, it tends to interpret everything as more evidence that you’re not qualified.
When your brain is in “I’m not qualified” Mode, you can never work yourself into feeling qualified.
Because no matter what happens, your brain will keep reinforcing the story that you’re not qualified.
If you make a mistake — your brain will say, “See? You’re not qualified!”
And if you do something well — your brain will say, “You did fine…in spite of being unqualified.”
A Mental Mode is like a TV channel that your brain has tuned to and that you are now watching.
No matter what you do in the living room while you watch…
That TV channel is going to keep playing the same stuff that channel always plays.
Your brain thinks that if you just work hard enough, that will change your mental TV channel.
But that’s like saying “If I just do enough cartwheels in my living room, the TV will automatically switch from TNT to Lifetime.”
You can do as many cartwheels as you want…
You’re still going to be watching Law & Order reruns on TNT at the end of it.
If you want to feel better, you have to change your mental TV channel.
If you want to feel like you know what you’re doing and you’ve got this and you DO belong here…
You have to change your Mental Mode.
Because operating from “I’m not qualified” Mode is never going to make you feel like you ARE qualified.
Only operating from “I am qualified” Mode can do that.
So here’s the big question most people have next…
“How the heck am I supposed to change what Mental Mode I’m in?”
Right now, it probably feels like your brain is grabbing the remote control and choosing what channel to watch before you even have a chance to stop it.
That’s what we do in coaching.
It is an incredibly simple 4 step process.
We identify which Mental Mode you’re operating from right now
I use one of my 10 techniques for changing your Mental Mode
We ask your brain: “How did that resonate? What do you think about that?”
If it resonated, great! We’ve changed your Mental Mode.
If it didn’t resonate, no worries. I try another one of my 10 techniques until we find the thing that resonates and changes the Mode.
We make a plan for you to deploy the same technique and change that Mental Mode in your day-to-day life, when you need actually it.
And as we do this every single week, you rewire the specific Mental Modes that are keeping you stuck right now…
AND you learn the overall skill of noticing and changing your Mental Modes, for life.
If this still all feels a little abstract to you, come get a free sample of coaching, and you can experience exactly what this feels like.
Or, if all of this makes perfect sense to you…
And you’re ready to stop feeling stuck, rewire your Mental Modes, and gain mastery of this skill for life…
Grab a free consult call with me and let’s map out exactly how we’ll work together.
What my clients have to say…
“Pooja has a really good balance of validating your emotions but also giving feedback and being upfront like, ‘Hey, I've seen this pattern in you.’ That made me trust her and her frameworks — she is really looking out long term for the client’s best interest.”
—Client | CEO, PE-backed company
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