Stand Firm Against Performance Pressure

My one-year-old son can stand up; he just doesn’t believe he can. Every time we attempt to make him stand up on his own, he bends down and puts his hands on the floor. We have tried enticing him with all sorts of things and distracting him with things, but as long as he is aware that nothing is supporting him and we are watching, he will drop like a bag of potatoes.

However, sometimes without any intervention at all, distracted by his own activities as opposed to our amateur antics, he just stands. He could be holding a toy and completely clueless that he has let go of the chair or has stopped leaning against a wall, and stand. This causes us to shriek in delight, but that ends it all. Once the performance pressure sets in and he realises he is standing without support, he drops his little body to the floor.

How many of us are living on the floor because we have bowed down to performance pressure from other people? You know yourself. You have this fantasy of what you would actually do or be if no one was watching you. You may, like my son, have moments of brilliance and confidence until you catch someone watching you.

So where am I going with this?  I know we don’t live in a cocoon and we do exist with other people.  However, I think we have become overly-invested in what other people think of us and that is keeping us on the floor.

This week we asked students in our class to answer the question “What would you do if you knew no one would judge you?” A couple of people came up to me and told me exactly what they would do. Maybe some of their responses relate to your own life. For instance, someone told me if he wasn’t worried about what people would think, he would invest in places that do not conform to the image he has built up. This is something that has come up over the years during my personal finance classes. Many people ask me where they should invest and a big part of what blocks them from seeing investment opportunities is that they think the investments have to live up to a certain image. For example, you may think that only certain investments are in line with your position as a managing director. You also envision telling your immediate peers and members of your social circles about that property that you have bought.  Many times the two motives will clash i.e. investment and image. However, the truth is that not many appropriate investment choices will conform to your desire to please others. So many times we squash what we know intuitively and factually to be the right thing to do and try to fit ourselves somewhere else. Your friends will perk up at the mention of the “right locations” but remember they are not putting the money in with you. Do not look at your investments through the eyes of your image or the perception you want people to have of you and/or your abilities.

Caring about other people’s perceptions is also what keeps people from quitting their jobs and starting a business. It is not that people do not have business ideas. The ideas just do not conform to a certain image. Now, the main issue here that people struggle with is not the money. One of our students told me that she works in the top floor of a certain building and has a corner office. How does she leave that to bake? The answer to this is not easy and I think the best way to look at it is from a point of regret.

On your last day on earth, what will you regret most? Not baking or leaving the corner office? So leave aside the financial planning that may need to be done before taking the leap because many times that’s just an excuse not to deal with difficult questions. If the bigger regret is the corner office, stay there. If when you are alone, you truly know that you will regret not baking (despite the present comforts of the corner office), work towards dropping the office. You may be in the corner office but on the floor of your life.

Maybe the baking has so much more to give you than the corner office.

Lastly, there are people who have told me that if they were not afraid of other people’s perceptions they would change their lifestyles to accommodate something that had more meaning to them e.g. “If I didn’t care about what people think, I would spend less so that I can travel more.”

Many of us are spending money we don’t need to be spending because of what others will think if we don’t.

People feel they will be judged if they are not in the bar every Friday night, if they are not at certain clubs or restaurants over the weekends, if people visit them and they do not have cable TV, if they are not driving certain models of cars, if they do not own a home, etc. All these things are not bad to have by the way, just be sure that you are not doing it to prove a point to other people.

If not, then your lifestyle is not a free choice but a noose round your neck that will continue to strangle you; you will come to resent it. Like my son who stands when he is distracted enough to drown out our voices and his own disbelief, you too can find your zone and stand up on your own without unnecessary performance pressure. Get distracted by your own activities.

Always seek to answer what you would do if you thought no one would judge you. It removes the unnecessary “noise” and ensures the information you do choose to incorporate in your decision is as objective as possible.  Do you! Only one of you was made.