My Story

Be perfect. (Or at least be better than those around me.)

That’s who I strived to be for as long as I can remember.

It’s a bit embarrassing to say that out loud, actually. But if I didn’t make the honour roll… wasn’t captain of the sports team… didn’t get a constant stream of praise from my partner and my boss… I was pretty sure I was failing.

And what I wanted more than anything else in the world, was to be competent. Being competent meant I was enough.

For most of my life, that approach to self-evaluation worked great.

I was motivated to work hard and do better. It was core to my identity.

I remember my first job after my Master’s degree. I was doing research and organizing conferences at the Ivey Business School. My boss was a brilliant woman in her 50s, who lived and breathed her work. She would often send her first emails at 5 am and end her workday late in the evening.

I took great pride in responding to her emails when I woke up at 6 am. Occasionally, she would make a comment recognizing the early time stamp on my email and I could feel my heart expand with pride. She saw that I was working hard. Therefore, I was enough.

My praise addiction was so serious, I was even checking emails on my wedding day! As my hairdresser tucked my curls into an elaborate bun on the top of my head, I was organizing conference details from my phone.

But there are two MAJOR, HUGE, CATASTROPHIC PROBLEMS with sourcing your self-confidence from external approval.

1.      You pursue what other people value (because it earns you approval) – at the expense of what you value.

2.      Your self-confidence becomes fragile. It shatters like thin glass the minute approval is removed or your accomplishments take a hit.

Stuck in this cycle? It’s not your fault.

Let’s take a sec to remember that in Western society, we are all programmed this way. As children, we learn how good it feels to get good grades and make our parents proud.

Then, because our thought patterns are largely locked in by the time we are 8 and recycled over and over again, we unconsciously carry these habits into adulthood.

The time I broke.

Fast forward 5 years from the time I started that job. I had been promoted several times and was now the Operations Manager.

My partner and I had a 1-year-old daughter at home, when life then surprised us with twins. We ended up with 3 babies under 2 and the pieces of my life NO LONGER FIT.

Gone were my 6 am emails. At 6 am, there was a newborn baby latched onto each boob and a toddler pulling on my sweatpants.

I arrived at work at 9 am. (Truthfully, it was usually 9:15 am by the time I came flying through the door with a messy bun, no make-up and high anxiety from all the slow drivers!) By the time I sat down at my desk, I felt like I had already worked a full day. My brain felt slow and foggy.

New whispers started to fill my once-confident mind: “You’re failing,” the voices whispered.

Those whispers grew louder and louder.

One day I was driving home from work and the whispers screamed so loudly they were all I could hear. I turned up the music. Louder and louder, until the stereo reached full volume and my ears started to hurt. Only then did the deep base of the music drown out the whispers.

Those whispers soon started to show on the outside, too. I became more emotionally reactive. I was quick to get angry at my husband, particularly for not being more supportive and offering me praise.

I was also quick to cry in my boss’ office - it really didn’t take much. If she offered constructive feedback or challenged my ideas, my mind went blank and hot tears rolled down my cheeks. (As you can imagine, this really didn’t help the situation.)