“Good enough, stopped being good enough a long time ago. So why not be great?”  Seth Godin.

I was recently chatting with my fellow blogger about things from our childhood that indicated our introverted natures. I recalled how my mum had put me into speech and drama classes at a young age for fear that my shyness would impact my academic success. Shyness is a typical descriptor or trait for introversion. Thank goodness for my mum’s foresight as I know I would not have had the success at school, my career and even socially had mum not put me into these lessons. Aside from the lessons I struck absolute gold with my teacher Judi Scheuber. Judi instilled self belief and really extended me outside of my comfort zone. She literally saw my talent and made me see it also. Not only did I end up presenting in front of large audiences in public speaking competitions, eisteddfods but also participating in improvisation competitions where you would be given a topic and then have five minutes to prepare a speech on the topic or a skit. I went from a shy little girl to someone who was loving presenting and competing in public speaking competitions and eisteddfods and even considering going to train at the Bell Shakespeare company or NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts).  So what is the purpose of this little story you may be thinking? Well It proves that yes you may be an introvert but this isn’t a negative with practice characteristics that are holding you back can be changed. Who knows, you may even enjoy these activities you once feared so much.

Now on the topic of fear during my chat with my fellow contributor we also got to talking about doubting ourselves. We also said how amazed we were at other colleagues, who without any specific experience in an area will take on promotions, or in a social setting go up to the CEO and start having a chat without hesitation. And good on them. I started reflecting and chatting about how it’s funny that I don’t know if it’s a female thing, an introverted thing or a "me" thing but I always seem to think that when it comes time to doing something outside of my comfort zone that will extend me professionally I will always immediately think I’m not good enough, I’m not experienced enough or I’m not ready. I explained how funny it is and how I can remember doing it with the first job I was offered. When I was 13, my speech and drama teacher asked me to help run workshops for early primary school students. At the time I remember telling my mum I don’t think I’ll do it. I’m not experienced enough I don’t want to disappoint Mrs Scheuber. To which my mum replied, “well do you think Mrs Scheuber would have asked you to teach if she didn’t think you were capable and ready”? Just recently I saw myself fall into the same pattern. I received great feedback from a colleague who discussed progression opportunities. While thrilledI immediately started thinking I don’t think I’m ready or experienced enough, what if I can’t do it to the standard they expect, I don’t want to disappoint him.

It’s ironic how things happen... As a part of a careers week through the MBA program I attended a session on “Discover How Your Brain Might Get in the Way of You Achieving Your Success” facilitated by Dr Diane Harner. The session looked at the neuroscience behind how our brain works to seek pleasure and the eight subconscious habits of thought that impact our success. The analogy used for describing the neuroscience of the brain was that the pleasure seeking and safe keeping elements of our mind are an elephant. The part of the brain that wants to achieve our goals is the elephant rider. Inherently and figuratively demonstrated by the size of an elephant in comparison to the size of the human rider we want to seek pleasure and keep safe (elephant). So in the example above around job progression, the tiny rider part of my brain knows this is a good idea but the large pleasure seeking protecting “elephant” part of my brain tells me “danger you are stepping outside of your comfort zone, I’m only into pleasure and safety so I’ll give this opportunity a miss. It’s far easier to plod along, plus you probably aren’t even experienced enough”. As Dr Harner pointed out, knowing that this is how our brain operates to seek pleasure and stay safe (elephant) we have to tap into the rider and assess if this something we need to do and make it happen.

I found this analogy pretty enlightening and this week have been applying it. For instance yesterday I was feeling tired in the last hour and a half of the afternoon. I had two tasks to complete that could have been left for tomorrow. I thought to myself it’s only an hour and half perhaps I go get a coffee to wake myself up, then I’ll clean my inbox out and read some articles online to research for another upcoming project. That’s when I had the realization, watch out the elephant is settling in and seeking the easy fun things and avoiding the work that, while not needed to be done today, should be done today so the other tasks on the to do list can be done tomorrow. It’s funny, once I realized it was the figurative elephant taking over my mindset I got the imaginary rider into gear and finished off those two tasks. The even funnier thing is, once they were done I felt pretty proud of myself for knocking them out of the way and had a spurt of energy.

So in the case of my recurring “not good enough” mentality,  every time an opportunity comes up that will take me outside of my comfort zone, I have now realized this is just my elephant kicking in to protect me or to be lazy and take the easy route. Understanding that this is how our minds are wired I can push on engage the rider part of my brain on and saddle up to get on with embracing the task or opportunity. I will no longer think I’m not good enough and instead re-phrase it to “Actually, I can”. To finish, some inspiration to help anyone else who has encountered this doubt mindset:

“If not me, then who will it be”. This quote came form one of my old bosses who used to have on a card just below her desk monitor.

“Good enough, stopped being good enough a long time ago. So why not be great?”  Seth Godin.

Photo by Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash.