You don’t have a confidence problem. You have a metrics problem.
Most of us are used to villainizing our inner critic.
It’s like a little gremlin that sits on your shoulder and constantly says:
You’re not doing enough.
You’re not doing enough.
You’re not doing enough.
You’re not doing enough.
And no matter how much you do, it’s never enough.
The gremlin has a bottomless appetite and it’s never, ever satisfied.
I’ve literally watched myself do the very things my gremlin wanted me to do — I’ll complete task after task after task — and still, at the end of the day, my little gremlin is completely unmoved.
Its emotional tenor stays exactly the same — before, during, AND after I get the thing done.
But let me give you another way of thinking about this little gremlin.
During one of my phases of being really into World Cup soccer, I read a New Yorker profile of Tim Howard, the 2010 US Men’s National Team goalkeeper.
The profile contained this description of Tim during a game:
Even during lulls, he was in motion—kicking the goalposts to clean the sod from his cleats, tugging at his socks, touching and retouching the mesh of the net.
He seems to find comfort in tactile repetition, and in reminding himself, to millimetre tolerances, exactly where he is.
Something about that visual stuck with me.
…touching and retouching the mesh of the net.
He seems to find comfort in tactile repetition, and in reminding himself, to millimetre tolerances, exactly where he is.
I think this is what the gremlin on your shoulder is really doing.
It’s not trying to tear you down or sabotage you or make you doubt yourself.
It’s just constantly assessing:
Where am I? Where am I? Where am I?
Am I okay? Am I okay? Am I okay?
Constantly asking that question is not a problem.
This is one of the ways your brain keeps you safe.
It’s just one of the many always-on monitoring processes that your Automatic Brain is constantly running, the same way that it monitors your temperature and hunger and thirst and pain and balance and energy levels.
Alongside all those other things, your Automatic Brain is also constantly monitoring one more metric: Enough-ness.
So it constantly asks: Am I doing enough? Am I good enough? Am I doing a good job?
The problem is not that your brain constantly monitors the answers to those questions.
The problem comes in when the goalposts that your brain is constantly touching and retouching and assessing itself against…
…are the wrong goalposts.
You can put Tim Howard in a goal that’s ten times the size of a normal soccer goal.
And he’ll probably feel very stressed out, because all his quick self-checks about where he is and how he’s positioned and whether he’s set up to block the ball will say:
⚠️ Problem! Problem! Problem! ⚠️
We’re in the wrong place! We’re positioned badly! We can’t block the ball!
But that’s not Tim Howard’s fault. He’s not “self-sabotaging” or “being negative” or “doubting himself.”
Tim Howard is in a goal that is so gigantic that it doesn’t make sense for one person to guard it.
He doesn’t have a “confidence problem.” He has a metrics problem.
He needs to be in a goal that is possible for one person to guard.
The same thing is happening with the little gremlin on your shoulder.
Most of us have never sat down and consciously written out our own success metrics.
We haven’t consciously defined the “soccer goal” that we’re guarding — the goalposts that we’re constantly reaching out to try and touch.
And in the absence of you consciously defining what those goalposts are…
…your Automatic Brain has very helpfully stepped in and defined them for you :)
But your Automatic Brain has not run the most sophisticated process when it defined your goalposts for you.
Instead, it just absorbed whatever random crap was floating around on TV and movies and in society and on social media…
…and it used THAT to construct a set of goalposts for you that are probably impossible, self-contradictory, and total fucking nonsense.
That’s how you end up with goalposts like…
Being productive means constantly working and never, ever taking a break.
Being a good mom means never getting mad, never being tired, and always putting your kid’s needs above your own.
Being a good woman means [insert entire Barbie monologue here]
Your Automatic Brain did its absolute best when it constructed these goalposts for you.
But it’s garbage in, garbage out.
It just wasn’t using very good data when it constructed these. (TV, movies, social media, and “society” are the definition of garbage input data.)
We don’t have to demonize your brain for constructing such silly goalposts. It was doing the best it could with what it had :)
But we DO have to step in and create our own conscious, deliberate goalposts and success metrics.
Take your poor brain out of the soccer goal that’s ten times too big.
And put it in a soccer goal that’s actually the right size.
So that when it keeps “touching and retouching the mesh of the net” to assess where it is and whether it’s doing okay…
Its assessment will keep coming back saying:
Yes, you’re doing enough.
Yes, you’re doing enough.
Yes, you’re doing enough.
HOW do you construct those conscious success metrics?
What does a good set of metrics look like?
How can you be sure that you got them RIGHT?
And how do you actually transition your brain from automatically using one set of metrics to using new ones?
^ All of this is what we do in coaching.
And here’s how it’s going to feel when we’re done—
Instead of having a gremlin on your shoulder that’s constantly tearing you down… 👹
You’ll have a calm, steady first mate by your side. 🫡
And a quiet, unshakeable internal sense:
“I know what I’m doing. I know I’m on the right track.”
Let’s start today :)
Here’s what my clients have to say…
“The impacts have been huge. I started feeling more confident and self-assured at work. And that gave me the emotional bandwidth to start building better habits too.
Now I’m doing a lot better with my work and it’s taking up less energy at the same time. I’m not working as hard but I’m getting better results. I feel like this is a more sustainable way that I can conduct myself in my career.”
—Client | VP at Major Financial Institution
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