Ego Check. Authenticity matters.

Operating in a world that is driven by statistics and performance, constantly being judged by improvement, wow-factor, and the epicness scale, it’s so easy to get sucked into a performance delivery spiral that can quickly get out of control. And this can happen in either direction, positive or negative.

I’ve experienced both. The depleting and draining feeling of comparing your work to others (often comparing what you feel is your worst, with others’ best), and equally the incredible feeling of delivering a piece work you’re proud of and getting a reaction from the client somewhere on that epicness scale.

I’ve found recently that the extremes of both scenarios lead to a trap of self-doubt or self-elevation that are both unhealthy. Feeling frustrated or down because things aren’t going how you thought or even feeling like your quality or skills are not where they should be is, to a certain point, absolutely okay. The human experience is not singular in its emotional state, but these trials should be learnt from and used to grow both mentally and physically, and not lead to self-deprecation.

Success, on the other hand, should be celebrated and cherished, but to allow it to consume your mind, allows the ego to identify wholly with that success and what it represents and leads to your identity (and how you view yourself) to become dependent on the success rather than what lies beneath the success. Unchecked this breeds pride and arrogance.

I’ve needed to check in with myself recently, noticing that I’ve been tending to identify who I am as a person too much with my performance - success and failure; and not with the essence of who I am. Chasing numbers or algorithms or what others are doing is so easy these days.

In my experience, people connect most easily to other people and not to things. Human connection is part of our dna, and in that respect authenticity towards who you are and what you offer the world is so important. People want to interact with you for you, not you for someone else. So I guess this is a lesson I’m trying to teach myself at the moment.