You've made more progress than you realise

If you're a frustrated high-achiever, you might not appreciate your achievements. This is your reminder.

Jul 18, 2023

Welcome to another Wednesday Wisdom. This is a free series - but it’s paid subscribers who make that possible. Many of the people who’ve read my work all these years don’t yet have a subscription. Hey, I get it, times are tough, you’ll get to it next time, right?!

But if you’re a regular reader, and you can afford it (and only if you can afford it), please become a paid subscriber. Your support makes this work possible, and every new paid sub makes my heart sing.

I want you to travel back in time, to three months ago.

Maybe take a look in your calendar. What meetings were you having? What were you frantically trying to finish off? What were you worried about?

Odds are, a lot of that stuff is over now - and a good chunk of it didn’t even matter. The same is true of what you’re worried about now.

1. The closer you are to something, the more important it seems.

Our brains are wired to put immediate threats first, which makes sense, from an evolutionary standpoint. We need to react to the threats in front of us, to stay alive.

This is great when we’re staring down a woolly mammoth, but not when we’re panicking at every new email and catastrophising every relationship, project or meeting that doesn’t go to plan.

Most of the stuff you’re worried about right now, just like the stuff you worried about three months ago, isn’t that big a deal.

If you’re sacrificing time with your hobbies, family, or exercise to get things done - stop it. You’ll regret it.

2. You’ve achieved more than you’ve given yourself credit for

Take stock of what you’ve pulled off in the last three months: personal, professional, and otherwise. Where have you made progress? What problems have you solved? How are you different? What have you launched, finished… and already forgotten about?

I did this exercise with my Not An MBA students this week and here's what we discovered: we've achieved a lot, and very few of us took the time to acknowledge and celebrate it along the way. I launched this Substack just three months ago - and Consultants of Choice in the same week! But without taking the time to celebrate, I’m already focused on the next step - making them bigger, better, bolder. Doh.

That’s a dumb way to live, because we’ll never be happy. If you don't take the space to celebrate your wins and milestones, you're signing up for constant dissatisfaction.

Reflect, and celebrate your achievements - because you definitely have some.

3. Check your motivations

Do you feel like you’ve got something to prove? Who are you doing this all for? … and are they even paying attention?

It’s awesome to be motivated, ambitious, and hard-working. It’s awesome to tick off milestones, and do great stuff. But if you’re doing all that because you’re driven by a little voice saying: “I bet you can’t” or the words of a teacher, parent, or ex are still ringing in your ears from years ago, you won’t feel good about the things you’ve done.

For everything that’s currently stressing you out, ask yourself why am I doing this? What does success look like, for me? And even more important… “Do I want this?”

No-one can answer those questions, but you. And there’s no wrong answer. But unless you genuinely enjoy the process of what you’re working on, you’ll find it hard to be happy. The milestones and achievements will fly past in a blur, and you’ll still be the same person - but if you love what you’re doing on the daily, you can’t lose.

Check you’re doing what you enjoy, for you - nobody else.

In summary:

Stop stressing about today’s stuff
Celebrate yesterday’s stuff
Do stuff for the right reasons.

Til next week,

This is a Wednesday Wisdom post - which I publish every week for free - so please share this post widely and encourage your friends, peers and colleagues to subscribe too.

This is an entirely reader-supported publication, so if you you enjoy what I write, please consider upgrading to paid! These posts take lots of time every week. I love writing for you - but it’s the paid subscribers who keep Wednesday Wisdom free for everyone.