You are here: Home / Business blogs / Are YOU worthy?

Are YOU worthy?

Posted by LindaMattacks on March 3, 2010 · View Comments 

Have you noticed that there are some people who, time after time, get within a hair’s breadth of what they really, really want only to have it slip through their fingers as they ‘come up to the finishing line’? And have you ever wondered why?

It can affect all aspects of life, too:  Business, relationships, sport, everything.

Take the Canadian women’s ice hockey team getting into trouble at the weekend after their Olympic Gold medal win. They decided to celebrate: Quite right too, after all the effort they’d obviously invested and the fantastic result they achieved!  High spirits and exuberance is totally understandable but was boozing away on the ice, on camera in front of any who wanted to watch such a good idea?

Gold Medal Winning Canadian Women's Hockey Team
Image by SixFourG via Flickr

Especially with one of their team members not being of Canada’s legal drinking age? There were rumours for a while that their medal was in doubt as a result. Somebody should have had the nous to say “Come on girls, let’s do this somewhere else…”

Then there’s the story of the salesman who would repeatedly be on the verge of signing a big contract.  He’d do something like taking the straight laced, teetotal buyer out for a slap up meal followed by a visit to a strip club… and the order would disappear the following day…

We all know at least one person like this, don’t we, where we despair because we think: “But s/he was doing so well…”

One-offs are one thing – we all goof – and that’s often how we best learn a lesson. But making (more or less) the same mistake again and again and expecting a different outcome is, well, madness isn’t it?

Or is it a sign that somehow or other we don’t believe we’re worthy of that contract, ‘win’, personal relationship, experience, job, body shape that’s just within our grasp…?

Are we afraid that our mates won’t feel the same about us once we’ve achieved it? Are we worried about losing them? Moving from our comfort zone, where we know our way around, and going into unchartered waters?

What are your views and thoughts (in plain English – i.e. preferably no psychiatrist’s couch ;-) )?

Linda

Enhanced by Zemanta
Related Posts with Thumbnails

Filed under Business blogs, Careers, Latest:, Linda Mattacks, Popular Posts:, Woman in Business · Tagged with , ,

  • "Moving from our comfort zone, where we know our way around, and going into unchartered waters?"

    That was the sentence which grabbed my attention Linda. And I've taken a while to think about it because heaven knows unchartered waters are one of my fortes! I'm a dive head first into something so new that it's unheard of, again and again . So which unchartered water is it that holds me in my comfort zone I wondered.

    In the last week I've moved into a water I've never been in before - and at last I think it's one which is going to be my comfort zone. I'm so looking forward to having the stability of a comfort zone - constant stretching is wonderful and yet it has to be tempered and balanced.
  • Your reply is intriguing!

    "I’m a dive head first into something so new that it’s unheard of, again and again".

    Without asking you what decided you to move "into a water I’ve never been in before" it set me pondering.

    The first sounds a bit madcap whilst the second comes across as calm yet full of anticipation: Are you being 'nicer' to yourself, maybe putting YOU first for a change ;-) ?
  • Hi Linda
    We have not meet before and I feel a bit like a first time caller. .
    Many years ago I worked for a person that used to advertise his vacancies in two or three different financial brackets i.e. description and a low wage - description and a higher wage etc, plus differing the job descriptions. He always said that people put values and boundaries themselves. Perhaps the less confident/modest people would be less likely to go for the high powered high wage job description and opt for a more ‘achievable’ version of the job advertised. It was always the same job. only the salary was different altered by The applicants vision of themselves and their ability to see themselves as a high earner. So go ahead make a fool of yourself as long as you try to learn by it!
    As long as you are always true to yourself.
  • Hi Jacqui

    Nice to see you and sorry to be a bit slow to reply...

    I'd heard versions of this story before but was never sure whether it was an urban myth so thank you :-)!

    It's not the same as yet in many ways similar to the widely held belief that the maximum pay rise the average employee will go for and expect is 10%. That was a real cliff hanger for me once, years ago, when I went for 33%... Well, I knew the bosses by then and I'd proven my worth by results over the two years I'd been with the company. I was underpaid. They knew it and I knew it. It was just a case of what salary adjustment would suit all round.

    I got 20% plus perks, we were all happy and I was included in higher level dealings from then on. A lesson or what?

    Of course, it could have all gone horribly wrong and I'd have had no alternative but to walk :-(
  • Interesting question Linda. why do we do this to ourselves? I sincerely don't know. My hting is sometimes volunteering too much information when only a little would have done. Not sure why I do it but it lands me in enough trouble each time:-)
  • LindaMattacks
    Thanks Ida:

    This is potentially a whole can of worms...

    I'm glad peeps seem to be pondering on it a bit :-)
  • In fairness to the Canucky girls, I gather their p*ss up took place on the ice AFTER the audience had left, so they were in effect on their own in there. I'm sure the photographers who snapped them beefed up the story to help sell pictures.

    Like Jane, I was brought up to feel that I was inadequate and unimportant and even today feel embarrassed if someone compliments me ... whenever that happened while my mother was alive she would say something quickly to counteract it, and I continue doing that where she left off. Stupid, isn't it.

    We mustn't forget, too, that the British culture energetically discourages any self-congratulation and to show any appreciation of yourself - no matter how realistic and true it is - is usually seen as boastful and conceited.

    I prefer the Americans' way of handling it ... as someone over there once said, "if you don't think you're good, why the hell should I?"

    (But of course I'm not that good, am I?) :-)
  • I had the opposite problem to Jane and you, Suzan. My mother thought the sun shone out of me, since I was always merely a narcissistic extension of herself. Consequently I was just left to get on with it. I did perform pretty well, I was quite a prodigy until about 11, but I can't remember feeling particularly smug about it in terms of competing with other girls.

    Then I went to a bigger school and sort of fell apart as my parents did not support me emotionally and I couldn't fend for myself Among Equals as it were. I sort of gave up really. Interestingly, although my mother has a letter saying I had one of the top five scores for 11 plus in the whole of the LCC area, I was put in the B stream, thus labelled not quite good enough early on.

    I suspect this is because I went to a primary school with outside toilets and 'me dad' is a plumber, ain't he! I also play the violin which got me into the snobby grammar school hoping to create an award winning orchestra. I am over it now, and celebrate my effnick roots in Sarf London with pride.

    Like Anne, I did not go to Uni (my parents could never have afforded to support me and you couldn't study and have a job in the 60s.) I settled for a journalism apprenticeship which was a degree level process in those days as journalism degrees hadn't started. I then switched to another profession at 40 which required an enormous amount of training and I mostly have the right bits of paper. Mid life study from scratch is infantilising and many people can't handle it, but here my over-confidence took me a long way.

    Again I don't always reality check well about what else needs to be done, on the other hand I'm not needlessly perfectionistic and not obsessed pointless detail but I'm brilliant at the academic 'game'. Having been a professional writer I can knock out an essay in about an hour while others angst about it and ask for extensions etc. This is ok in Therapy World as academic ability is not what makes a good therapist. Great! Suits me! LOL!
  • LindaMattacks
    I reckon you're absolutely right, Suze: They probably thought they were 'playing on their own territory' where they felt safe. Unfortunately for them, it turned out they weren't. Hopefully lesson learned; no real damage done; move on.

    On compliments: Being guilty of this myself for years, one of the nicest ways I ever heard this put into perspective was that to brush off a compliment is SO unfair to the person who profferred it. Maybe that's because that shifts the 'me' bit to concentrating on the other person's feelings.

    So, while I'm nowhere near gracious :-( at least I CAN say "thank you" rather than counteracting what they've generously said - it's a start, anyway...

    And OF COURSE you're that good :-)...
  • So Linda, wild guesses would be better than professional experience? That sounds like an edition of Loose Women!

    Hmm.

    Jane, you're probably right, good insight. You don't have to maintain the beliefs or the behaviours though.

    Success? Ask my mate Alan Rae how many times he failed in business - look at him now!

    I aim to be the first Old Age Pensioner in Britain to have a hit record, but if I don't it'll be ok, I'll have enjoyed the process. I know a lot of people I know and respect already really like my material, that's success to me. Selling a few on ITunes would be icing on the cake!
  • LindaMattacks
    Rhiannon, me old mucker: Hi - and love the 'warm and fuzzy' Gravatar! :-) :-)

    Also quite like the idea of "loose women..." Now THERE's a post title if ever I saw one...

    From everything we've spoken about and got to know each other I think you're tweaking my nose a bit here - and why not? You couldn't BE further away from the man (or woman) in the street's idea of the 'psychiatrist's couch I referred to...

    Rock on Mama - and let's rekindle those conversations... :-)
  • Busted Linda, hahahahaha. Yes I was teasing you. How the hell are you? I'm up to my ears, but nothing I can't handle. Out almost every night, lots of clients, lovely new man, in two bands, hit record pending, lost weight, hahahahaha. All good. Send news. xx As for the medal winners, I am so not into sport. I so don't care. It's entertaining I suppose, but it also fosters exaggerated celebration of competitiveness. Competitiveness is killing the planet, we need more Community Cooperation, not people obsessing about how they can feed their own egos.
  • Paul Walsh
    Does the Canadian team frequently screw up in this way? If so, your point is valid. If not, surely it begs the question "Why should their hard-won medal be 'at stake' for what is, at most, a misdemeanour? " Should sporting triumphs go only to those who are without moral or behavioural blemish?
  • LindaMattacks
    Hi Paul!

    1 I doubt it
    2 'Course it shouldn't
    3 Absolutely not - we'd lose some of the best achievers in the world if that were the case - and be left with a load of boring old fa*ts... ;-)
  • Paul Walsh
    and yet, time upon time, the puffed-ups of the sports world, and their evil twin, the media, go hell for leather at some sports star - frequently, for acts of both a private and personal nature ( John Terry / Tiger Woods et al ) that has zilch to do with their 'public' life. And I don't think that it can all be put down to a commercial decision - I seriously doubt that the fans of Terry or Woods give a flea's eructation about such indiscretions.
    As a society, it seems we have given over issues of morality to the media, which we know to be immoral.
  • Rosemary Slosek
    Sometimes i wonder if we're actually ready, but sometimes it's just fear, sometimes justified, sometimes not.

    Fear the fear and do it anyway has a lot to answer for.
  • LindaMattacks
    Ready? Who's ready and how do we know it?

    My gut response to this one, Rosemary, is: Is this an intuition that will serve me and contribute to what I really want? Or learned/ conditioned limitations that no longer apply to the 'me' I am now?
  • Ann Godridge
    It's an odd one, this, isn't it? I wouldn't like to count the number of times I "dropped out" of my education - until I finally completed my honours degree last year - a mere thirty years later than expected...

    As Jane says, sometimes it feels like deliberate self sabotage. I don't think it's about not feeling worthy, although I'm not really sure what it is. I don't think it's comfort zone, because I do things all the time that I've never done before, and enjoy the challenge.

    Hmmmm...
  • LindaMattacks
    So where's the "Hmmmm…" taking you, do you think? Somewhere nice :-)?
  • Ann Godridge
    Not sure really, Linda. I wonder if this is more a female pattern than a male one, though?
blog comments powered by Disqus