Beata Leyland
Freelancer & Business Owner & Author of this article
The Root Causes
If you see a small child, you can see an appreciative little bundle of joy smiling for any reason. All of us started from the same position, simply at certain point we lost it because someone told us that we are not enough, shown us to compare ourselves to somebody etc.
For some people the inner critic has many voices and many roots, some are parents, some teachers, some bosses, friends, and neighbours.
What is important to understand is that certain beliefs were not ours.
Time Management, Deadlines, Personal KPI’s and Micromanagement
My impression of flawless time management was to fill in all gaps with no breaks, sticking to the plan no matter what, tired or not.
In many places. Without realizing it, I recreated what was known to me.
I created goals for myself, but all the goals came from the assumption that everyday I will be super energetic, have great flow at work and outside of work and nothing will even for a second will ruin my agenda.
A great example of these recreated habits includes unrealistic KPIs—and excessive trackers. For me, they became huge timewasters.
Does this remind you of working for big companies?It should. My “eureka moment” came when I realized I had two choices: streamline what I tracked or track only what was truly necessary.
Another major issue was respecting my quiet/focus time.
I had trained myself to be constantly multitasking, stretching my attention so thin that I was always tired.
Fun fact is that this habit is also something I copied from the office environment—doing my job, helping others, chatting, and ending the day exhausted with not much actual work done.
Familiar, right?
Many times, less is MORE. Packing our agendas does not make us more productive. Even machines need time to recalibrate.
People Pleasing
I do not want to go down the rabbit whole of people pleasing as almost every culture has it deeply engraved to be polite, not cause problems and allow others to cross your boundaries only to not be perceived as being difficult or disrespectful.
As part of a team or community, fitting in is valuable — but there’s an important asterisk: you don’t have to fit in if it’s clearly not your group.
Throughout life we move between different groups, and that movement is called progress.
When you leave one group (Group A) and choose another (Group B), your choice can be used as feedback.
A huge part of it is that we are conditioned to over-apologize, to compensate Group A for their loss, and to make sure everyone still likes us “just in case.” The truth is that it usually is a personal habit rather than a responsibility. You don’t need to explain or over-explain yourself. No means no.
To keep clients happy and build strong relationships, you need to do great work, be empathetic, suggest solutions, and listen — but don’t overdo it and don’t over-explain yourself.
Communication
How you talk to yourself eventually shows on the outside.
You can pretend to be tolerant, calm, and liberal when everything is smooth — but when stress hits, your true inner voice appears.
We all experience that. We apologize to others for snapping or saying a few words too many, but have you ever apologized for being so unfair to yourself?
One of the most underrated skills today is simply being pleasant to work with.
I don’t mean being a people pleaser , but someone who avoids unnecessary drama, communicates clearly, shares both good and bad news, and is respectful.
Imagine this: you have a meeting with a client at 8:00 AM. It’s 7:57 AM, you log in, wait ten minutes, try to contact him, and he doesn’t show up. Then at 8:45 AM, you get a message saying he’s available.
What would you do?
What I used to do — far too many times — was log back in at 8:45 AM so I wouldn’t lose the client. And 90% of the time, the client turned out to be difficult, or we never ended up working together at all.
If you don’t show respect for your boundries others definitely won’t do it for you.
Perfectionism
We often have a very skewed view of what we perceive to be perfect as this changes with current marketing trends.
Maturity greatly helps in establishing in our minds what is perfect for ourselves, but it also requires honest reflection about world around us and an acknowledgment what /who we don’t need anymore.
If something costs me peace of mind it means not worth it, right ?
I don’t believe we can fully remove perfectionism from ourselves (at least I don’t see it in my own example) but it’s important to spot where we have such a problem.
All of us know at least a few people who are extremely talented, but they waste their own potential because of the cage of perfectionism.
It’s sad but it’s also a great lesson to try no matter what to get out of this trap.
It has also lot of to do with the fear of being successful as all people I know with multiple impressive degrees are emotionally and financially broke; and it’s not because of the lack of tools or talent.
I am aware I could easily write a book about these issues, as so many of us struggle with them.
Hopefully this article make you realise how much these issues affect you.
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