Stage 4 Tips

Don't Let Your Internal Critic Wreck Your Brand

What can you do if you don't like your brand You? Or don't think you've got a brand You?

Improve—or develop—your brand by telling a different story about yourself.

You could probably give me plenty of evidence that you're not good enough: the time when you dropped the fly ball at a crucial moment during a Little League game. The time when you asked that pretty girl to dance and she said no. The time you got a B in math when your best friend got an A. The time when you missed a deadline at work.

Everyone has her or his own examples of these. They prove nothing except that you're human. They only become a problem if you interpret them to mean that you're a loser, and start to believe that to be true. If you want a successful career, you have to begin gathering evidence for a different story: that you're good enough, and that you get stuff done.

Here are three things you can do:

List ten things you have accomplished in your career.

They don't have to be spectacular, they just have to show that you get stuff done. Build a case, based on evidence from your past, that you get stuff done.

List your home runs, your extra-base hits, even your really-well-timed singles. Keep them in a file or a journal which you can refer to whenever your internal critic attacks and tries to make you feel like you're a loser.

Begin an accomplishment list.

Start today: Rather than crossing items off a "to do" list as you complete them, write them onto an accomplishment list. Keep it where you can see it.

When you start to feel "not good enough" (sounds like a critic attack to me), refer to your list for evidence that you get stuff done.

Write a fictional accomplishment list for the next 12 months.

Using your imagination and elements of your career map, project yourself forward one year. What were the things you got done? If one or two of your ideas appeal, write down the actions that preceded their accomplishment.

Truth is, you can feel "not good enough" and still get stuff done. You can feel "not good enough" and still be a star performer.

Got a question for Gordon? Ask it here.

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