Authentic Success

I hear this phrase all the time.  At first it gave me this sort of free-fall feeling of “OK… let’s do this”.  It would give me the courage to take the scary step in that moment.  If this is how you use this statement, then by all means, let it be an in-the-moment tool for you.

BUT, the idea that you need to go through life “faking” anything is false.  It implies that if you do something enough times, it will become “normal”.  The action may become routine, but until you shift the energy causing the initial distress, all you are doing is shoving yet another part of your energy and emotions in to a box.  That box isn’t free-flowing… it is stagnant and creates a loss of your overall energy.

A better plan is to figure out where the fear, anxiety and stress are coming from.  Trust me when I say it isn’t this meeting, or that interview or the family gathering.  The root lies somewhere else.  Until you acknowledge and process that root, you will keep building stagnate boxes of energy in your system that eventually show up as burn out, anxiety attacks, chronic sickness and pain.  When you experience the desire to “fake it ‘till you make it”, take a moment and ask yourself the following questions:

1.     When have I felt like this before?

2.     Who is the person associated with this feeling for you?

3.     How do I want to feel in this situation instead?

I STRONGLY encourage you to find an energy practitioner that you resonate with to help you shift the core of the problem.  You will be doing a great piece of the work here by answering these questions, but I don’t want to mislead you in to thinking that self-awareness is enough.  It’s the first step… not the last one. The questions alone won’t solve the problem, but they will give you a path to follow to unlock those stagnant boxes and to let real emotions flow. You know, the good ones like happiness, purpose, confidence and joy.

Here is a short video that you can use to help with the in-the-moment fear and anxiety.  Give it a try and then modify my words to suit any situation where you feel the need to “fake” it.

To your success,

Deb

A couple of weeks ago, the host of a live cable show contacted me about Imposter Syndrome.  She had seen an event for my 8-week on-line course and wondered if I would like to come on her show to talk about it.  Ummm, yes!  I was excited about this new opportunity and new audience to talk to about authentic success.  I wanted to tell you the story of that day, and what I learned at the end of it!

It started at about 5am when I woke up to do an hour or so of work before my kids wake up, then I jump in the shower and put on my outfit of choice.  This is a quick process since I don’t have to do my hair or make-up.  I make lunches, choose kid-clothes, and get my two wee ones dressed and ready for the day.  6000 kisses and 4000 hugs later, I back out of the driveway with an ice-covered car honking and waving (as is our family custom)… it’s 6:45am.  My neighbours love us ;-).

I brave the highways that have been ice and snow covered for two days, causing bus cancellations and most people to stay home.  Not me though, I have a schedule to follow.  I arrive at my make-up appointment at 7:57am – first celebration of the day. I park on the street and race inside, excited to get my “fancy” face on (this is what my kids call my face when I have my make-up done).  Kerry is amazing – funny, talented and a multi-tasking Mom like me.  Kerry works her magic and I am transformed from slightly pale and puffy, to put-together and sculpted.  It’s a happy surprise every time.

I run out of her house at 9:03am – oops, my hair appointment is for 9am.  I set my GPS to my next location and start searching for the number of the salon.  I call them at a red light to tell them I am running late, at the same time noticing a parking ticket on my windshield.  I finish my call at one red light and hop out of my car at the next to grab the ticket.  Phew… lucky, it’s only $20!

I hit the salon at 9:20am and Megan gets to work.  I’m bubbling and excited about my “fancy” face and my upcoming T.V. debut.  She also works her magic, transforming my fine wispy hair into a shiny, gravity-defying masterpiece.  I’m sitting there watching my transformation and I start to get really agitated.  Hmmm… “Megan, what time is it?”… “10:02am”, she replies.  Uh oh!  I tell her that I am due at the studio at 10am and she performs the last of her magic (i.e. cements my new do with copious amounts of hair spray) and I rush out.   Thank you intuition!

I avoid a bone jarring fall in the icy parking lot, ignore the drizzle threatening my hair, and jump back in the car to my next programmed location.  I am doing this!!!  I arrive at the station at 10:23am.  I penguin walk my way over the ice and hit the buzzer.  Come on, come on… yes!!!  A kind gentleman lets me in.  Big breath, I’m okay.  I’m here and I meet Melissa the host.  She is so kind as we shake hands and I think – I have made it, yay for me!  Then she says, “I have you scheduled in for tomorrow’s show…”   What?  “NOOOOOOOOO!” my inner voice cried in horror, “This is not happening!”  I stand there frozen trying to calm the rush of adrenaline, the urge to scream that is matched only by my urge to cry.  We stand there for a very silent and dramatic 30 seconds before she says, “Hang on though, I’ll make this work.  You may actually be saving my butt today.”  Holy mother of peace and calm… I take a big breath and a huge smile blooms on my face.

I wait for my spot, and I focus on how amazing this day has been. Everything has fallen in to place and I feel on top of the world!  I do my spot and I had a really great time.  I’m out of the studio by 11:20am and headed back home.  I am exhausted and exhilarated, and then reflective.  I am amazed at my perspective, and that not once during the day had I thought of anything that had happened in a negative way.  This is a HUGE shift in perspective for me.  It could easily have gone the other way, and been filled with overwhelm and panic, but I didn’t go there at all.  The old me would have griped about the parking ticket, panicked about being late for my hair appointment, fretted the entire drive to the studio, begrudged a 2 hour drive with 2 hours of prep time for a 7.5 minute spot on the show, and lashed out when the date confusion surfaced.  I would have ruined the entire day just from my perspective alone.  What a waste of a fabulous, fancy-faced, va-voomed hair, live T.V. debut that would have been!

That is what success is… not the story of what happened, but the feelings you had about the experience.  I felt happy, excited, powerful and full of joyful curiosity for what would happen next.  What a day, what a lesson, and what a success!

Click here to watch my live T.V. debut!

Whenever I talk to women about their talent, capabilities or success, they almost always downplay themselves. I’d say, about 90% of the time this happens. There are two main responses:  1) They genuinely don’t internalize their success (i.e. they have Imposter Syndrome), or 2) They actually understand that they just pulled off something great, but don’t want to sound like a “jerk”.  As much as Imposter Syndrome is my passion and specialty, I want to address the “feeling like a jerk” reaction.

I believe that feeling like a jerk comes from observing other women who celebrate themselves being treated like a jerk.  The empowering movement of having women be bold, take action and step forward consistently bumps up against the reality that they will be brought down with words, looks or actions if they do.  They are treated as arrogant, rude and, yes, like a jerk.  This is not just men reacting this way, I have watched women react chillingly to another’s success.  Contrast this sharply with a man celebrating a well-deserved success.  My observations have been that the people around him are happy to celebrate with him.  Like it is somehow more normal and acceptable for him to acknowledge his contribution to the world.  This standard of normal is very dis-empowering for women on their journey to authentic success.

Without getting in to a whole sociological debate on this, I simply want to encourage women to own their success and tell them that genuinely celebrating what you can, and have done, is never a jerk move.  It is powerful and necessary to build momentum, and move to your next level of success.  So please don’t allow your light to dim in the face of other’s potential reactions.  Celebrate the hell out of what you have done because you deserve it, and the rest of us need to see it!  Young professional women need to see you shining bright.  Our daughters need to see us stepping forward and owning our success with the same vigour as we own our responsibilities.  Our sons need to learn that this is the appropriate response to success for both men and women.

Let yourself be happy and proud for as long as you can hold that feeling.  It is preparing you to be able to hold that level of joy and excitement the next time.  This is a practice that will serve you on so many levels.  Power, joy, confidence, happiness, success – and all you have to do is celebrate!

A note for the men… this is not an attack on you.  It’s simple social conditioning that you can help change so that your wives, daughters, sisters and friends can own their very well deserved successes too.  If you find yourself not owning your success authentically, please know that I am speaking to you too.

I used to be a New Year’s Eve lover.  I loved the planning, the excitement, the energy… but I didn’t love the let-down.  Inevitably, I built the evening up with unrealistic expectations and then grieved the loss of a “magical” evening the next day.  Then I would start the motivational self-talk about keeping all of my resolutions THIS year.  I wasn’t going to fail. I was going to achieve them!  For 3 or 4 days I did, and then real life crept back in and I forgot all of that determination to create a new me.  Sound familiar?

Of course it does, because we are built this way.  We are built to behave in ways that keep us safe emotionally.  If I had magically been gifted the new me with perfect eating habits, a competitive athletes body, an always gentle and loving personality that constantly gave back… I would never have been able to handle it.  Have you ever realized that the changes you are wishing for require such an enormous difference in your emotional state, that they would immobilize you?  Remember that our energetic systems don’t differentiate between good and bad emotions… we only recognize the vibration.  Our system’s job is to keep us at vibrations that we know and feel safe with.  So consider your “wish” for the new you is energetically equivalent on the positive end, to say getting fired on the negative end. It isn’t “safe” for you to experience either drastic change on the spectrum of emotions.  We all need to recognize the scope of what we are asking for, and scale it appropriately to what we can handle.

If you really enjoy the process of setting resolutions for yourself, my suggestion is to be gentle with them.  Choose things that are achievable and are stepping stones to the big changes you want in your life.  So please don’t set a New Year’s resolution of going to the gym 5 days per week or deciding to ask for a huge promotion.  Start smaller so you don’t set yourself up for failure.  Work in increments so that your energy system feels safe and allows them to stick and become lifetime habits.

Think of this like climbing a mountain.  Your body will accept the altitude changes if you walk up.  You may experience some discomfort, but you will be able to do it.  If you were simply lifted to the top, your body would be in crisis.  It is the same with your emotions, so please plan to take the steps and walk at your own pace.  The destination is still there, but this way you will not only get there, but you will be able to enjoy it once you are.

To your continued success in 2017,

Deb

Ever wonder why you can be capable, confident and powerful at work and yet, in your personal growth and development you feel like you are constantly floundering?  Or why you can be open, funny, silly and engaging at home, but that kind of behaviour has no place at work? For me, my “work self” was confident, solid, smart and powerful, and my “home self” was quiet, insecure, emotionally drained and in desperate need of a hug. These were two wildly different personalities that I put on every day. When I got exhausted enough by this pattern, I dug in to figure out why. The answer was pretty simple really – I was faking it at work!

Yep – I had simply learned to put an almost impenetrable mask of confidence on at work.  It let me be what I thought was a strong leader, a compassionate (albeit a little arrogant now that I think about it) listener, a great problem-solver.  It kept the vulnerable parts of me safe.  Genius really.  Or was it?

Here’s the danger if you notice your work life persona is a mask.  It is EXHAUSTING. I mean, on an energetic, authentic level…this kind of fakery is emotionally and energetically exhausting.  It robs from other areas of your life to shore up your professional life.  This might work temporarily to advance your career, but from an “authentic success” perspective, it is a flawed plan. One area will always be giving energy to support another, and eventually that imbalanced neglect will start to show.  You might get sick and need a few days off to recuperate, which allows you to store some much needed energy.  Your home life may get rather dramatic because you are short-tempered, exhausted and running on empty by the time you get home.  Your work may start to suffer because it is the only thing that will make you take notice.

For me, it was a series of dramatic and emotionally draining work events that precipitated my wake-up call.  A tricky thing about that confident mask – it blinds you to what your authentic self would see quite easily.  It keeps you operating in a state of fear that you have to be perfect, have the answer, push harder…all the damn time.  Here is the irony, your authentic, successful, flawed, powerful self, is so much more motivating and inspirational to others than your mask. Taking off that mask will allow you to fail without taking it personally, and achieve incredible success that you own on a very personal level (because let’s face it, you are too busy attacking the next challenge to own the success of the accomplishment you just achieved).  The truth is that there is immense power in shining your true face to the world.

Bottom line…the harder you are holding on to that mask, the deeper is your fear of not being good enough or accepted for your true self.  That fear is a dangerous place to live, because it cuts off your true access to happiness and success.  I can promise that taking off your mask is worth all of the learning, vulnerability and practice that it takes to show, shine and rock your authentic face to the world.  I hope you find that bravery for yourself – it is absolutely worth it.