Finding Freedom from Performance-Based Self-Esteem
“How can I find freedom from performance-based self-esteem?
I frequently get this question directly or indirectly from my high performing clients - executives, entrepreneurs, professional athletes, and leaders of all kinds - and it’s no surprise, as coaches typically attract clients looking to overcome challenges similar to their own. You see, I’ve spent decades transforming performance-based self-acceptance into a fuller self-appreciation.
If your self-esteem depends on your perception of the quality of your performance, your performance itself can suffer. Instead, by learning how to stay present, giving your all, and allowing your sense of self to come from your effort - your commitment to finding fulfillment and purpose in what you do - you can transform your whole life.
In my practice, I typically see clients shift their relationship with competition and performance in three phases. When I look back at my own experience, I remember them well:
1. It’s Me or You.
When I was a graduate student at Stanford, each new set of classmates was a chance for me to survey my “competition” and determine a be-the-best strategy. That perspective worked for a while and I succeeded through hard work and constant vigilance. But, that me-or-you comparison thinking created unnecessary stress on my relationships and led to a lifestyle of having to perform at a certain level of excellence in order to feel good about myself.
2. Competing Against Myself
Later, I came to believe that competing against myself would bring true fulfillment in life, school, work, or wherever I “performed.” I didn’t change my competitive nature, I just added the self-awareness that if I focused on my own performance, I would do better. And I did.
But I still suffered from internal comparison and performance based self-esteem, even though self competition served me well in those high stakes settings.
Doing your personal best can be a healthy mindset that gets good results but self-competition becomes dangerous when you think the quality of the end result defines you, that you have to perform at your best to be worthy of your own or any one else’s acceptance
3. Finding Fulfillment and Purpose
Competing with yourself, pushing your human body and mental capacity to a limit that feels good can bring its own kind of joy and even catharsis. When you’re clear on what your intentions are, your body, mind, and spirit, can get stronger and become even more capable.
On the other hand, too much of a non competitive mindset can breed complacency. Lately, neither stance has felt fulfilling on a consistent basis. Feeling restless and unfulfilled has led me to realize it’s become too easy to polarize between what I perceive as complacency and hyper-focused doing.
Stuck in either-or thinking, with only two conflicting choices - doing too much or doing nothing - the result is predictably unsatisfying and frustrating.
What if learning how to focus on self-expression as a means of finding fulfillment, without needing to evaluate the result, is the “best” way to achieve success?
What if by showing up, giving 100% attention to “performance,” and honoring the results with grace and humility, it is entirely possible to transcend the dichotomy of a performance-based identity?
These are the questions I was asking myself after decades of striving for the wrong reasons, driven by performance-based self-acceptance. Wanting to cultivate a mindset of embracing all aspects of competitiveness and self-expression in performance, I wondered if others felt as I did. I found myself once more in the valley of either-or but this time, I suspected I wasn’t alone.
Wanting to do better, not just for myself-- for my clients and readership too--I asked myself what it would look like if I embraced all aspects of my competitive and expressive self for the greatest good… and I’m asking you too. What if you accepted that competition can be healthy, that striving for excellence and your personal best is fun, and that, in the process, you can discover something about yourself that brings a new level of fulfillment? What will your world look like when competition, self-competition and self-expression co-exist in healthy amounts?
Sometimes, competition is just what we do. It’s part of being human. And, a competitive spirit can encourage growth and evolution.
Sometimes, self-competition motivates us to be better, and do better. That’s also part of being human.
Sometimes, being completely present and giving your all to whatever it is you are doing is enough to feel fulfilled. Tapping into your most true and real potential is a potent motivational tool.
The bottom line is that any way you choose to perform and show up can be an opportunity for self-expression, learning, and challenge. It’s up to you to decide how you want to use it. Free of self-judgment and full of a zest for life, you can express your true self in all its glory.. .and maybe win something in the process.