Hi <<First Name>>,

If you've been a long-time subscriber (thank you, of course!), you may recognise this Letter from last May. I thought I would resend it today as I've been thinking a lot about perception lately and I feel the words I wrote at that time are something we all need reminding of.  

-----

I was recently talking with a lovely coaching client (she’s given me permission to share this) who had reached a wall in between sessions with me. This wall was stacked and cemented high with comparison, self doubt and insecurity.

This wall will probably be incredibly familiar to you, I know it was for me, but she felt so alone.

She felt that everyone she came into contact with who also ran a small business was flying high, knowing exactly what their next move was and working out everything in a strategic, regimented way that she knew nothing about. She felt like there was a party (the sort of party where everyone knows what they’re on about, you know the sort) and she wasn’t invited. She got to the door and knocked loudly, but no one was going to tell her the secret password.

Firstly, I’ll say that I have felt this. Hard. When I first started LH design, social media was feeding me with thoughts of ‘everyone but me knows what they’re doing’, ‘I can’t be successful because I don’t know how to do X and Y’ or ‘they have everything planned out for the year and I don’t know what I’m doing next week’.

And I think social media can definitely take some of blame here but I also think it’s our mindsets that need to buck up, too.

This perception that everyone else but you knows what they’re doing is exactly that. It’s a perception. It’s how our brains have chosen, or rather been programmed via today’s mediums and resources, to think. Our brain interprets the ‘success’ we see on social media as black and white because why wouldn’t it? It’s seeing an image and caption that screams ‘I have my shit together’. The reality is, however, that is not the whole picture.

All we are seeing when we scroll through our feeds is a tiny square of that person’s life. We’re not seeing the hard graft over the invoicing that morning; or the frustrated tears over a bad email from a client. We’re not seeing the doubts over whether they’re in the right business or not- we’re not seeing the one-more-minute-of-this-and-I’m-giving-up moments.

When I reminded that lovely client about this, that actually no-one has their shit together- it’s like she instantly grabbed a hammer and knocked that wall down. She didn’t feel alone anymore and she felt like she could continue in the comfort of that.

So, overall, this is just a reminder that we are all winging it. There's no secret formula or any special hashtags for that version of success you desire; we all just show up every day and bring our best work to the table. And that’s all we can do.
 

As always, I’m cheering you on.
 

Lola