Minding our Business: Finding Peace and Focus in a Culture of Self-Promotion
By: Drea Valderama
Nowadays, there is more visibility and connection than ever, and it is easy to lose sight of our own growth and success when scrolling through feeds full of other people's work details. Social media has created a culture of self-consciousness and self-criticism, especially when we see others appear to be doing “better” and “more” than we are in their work. What we find ourselves doing next is signing up for webinars, courses, and jobs in order to keep up, but more for winning a place at an imaginary career marathon and less for learning and self-development. That being said, we should take active steps from letting the success of other people impact us negatively to focusing on our own journey, starting with how we see ourselves, feel about our work and finding opportunities in the process.
Avoiding self-comparison
Logging into LinkedIn, I was not expecting to fall into the rabbit hole of checking out profiles of other people and comparing their information and credentials to mine. Knowing that people near my age have landed on five internships or that they have started a nonprofit, I started internalizing the notion that I should have been doing the same as them. It did not take me long to realize the fault of this thinking. While respecting their hard work and credibility, these grand LinkedIn portraits should not be seen as absolute and an attack on our own work selves.
Through digital connections, summaries, and features, people in LinkedIn can effectively make out their ideal professional selves (Castillo-de Mesa & Gómez-Jacinto, 2020). They can selectively share milestones in their careers, from promotions and positions to certifications and recognitions. These accomplishments can reflect positively on a person, of course. But we shouldn't take them as our benchmarks of success– that if we weren't like them, our efforts would not seem as accomplished. After all, social media or merely virtual presence does not capture the fullness of a person or their potential. While online profiles like LinkedIn do help in presenting oneself and staying relevant in the professional world, it is difficult to evaluate one’s past, present, or future based on them, even if it appears at first that they are excelling more and faster than you. Behind long "I'm happy to share that..." posts lies a working individual going through ups and downs in work, moving at different speeds, and pursuing different destinations that turn out to be unmatched to our own experiences.
People also develop their own ideas of success, which are not necessarily reflected on what is exposed online, and they are striving toward it on their own terms rather than according to others. Hence, when we choose to pick up something from these people who have impressive online portfolios and personas, it shouldn't be their exact decisions. Just as they do, we should simply mind our business: to concentrate on a pace and goal that works for us.
Managing frustrations from within
Putting ourselves under constant pressure to "succeed" that we reference to what other people show online is unhealthy. It might convince us that what we are doing is never enough. This is probably not going to make us truly perform and approach work in a productive manner, but rather the opposite, as Nikki Vergara shared in the most recent webinar about feeling self-inadequacy. It might be easy to just experience these negative thoughts and emotions, owing to the negativity bias that makes us leer away from positive ones. However, the Positive Interventions Learning Lab highlights that dwelling on negative feelings can only limit our ability to address a certain issue.
Gathering from the PILL course, gratitude, inspiration, and pride are three positive emotions that I believe can help change our view with our work progression from being pressured from the credentials of other people to being derived from oneself. Rather than feeling like there is something missing from our work progressions, we can recognize that each event and activity counts. I can express gratitude for how well I'm doing in my circumstances and participating in things that are currently good. By doing so, I'll attract similar things that benefit me. I can express gratitude for how well I'm doing in my circumstances and participating in things that are currently good. By doing so, I'll attract similar things that benefit me. In the words of Jio Capinpin, “when we appreciate the good, the good appreciates.” By recognizing the positive aspects of our current circumstances, we will then experience inspiration to take action. We'll become more open to opportunities that motivate us to succeed through various endeavors. Lastly, when we see how things can look up in our way, we can build confidence in our abilities and identities. A healthy pride can make us pursue goals that are realistic, focusing our efforts much more intently on achieving accomplishment that is authentically ours.
Giving ourselves credit
I’m just getting started in my career and exploring my options. Again, it's simple to treat something like that as negligible when other individuals may do things that are different and seemingly grand in contrast. Separated from other people and what they post online, however, I can say that I have gone through and achieved so much here in Positive Workplaces, and that is worthwhile already. Compared to where other people are at, I might just be in square one and have a long way to go, but as long as I'm heading in the direction I want to go and grow in—and not the path I think I should go in just because people are there—that should be acceptable.
When we do notice how other individuals succeed in specific areas that do not apply to us, we can take this not as a weakness in ourselves but as an opportunity for collaboration and connection. Even if self-promotion is prevalent on sites like LinkedIn, they are ultimately social platforms that we can use to create networks that will help us flourish. We cannot do everything, but we can fill in some of the gaps that exist in other people’s lives and they in ours. Nikki Vergara put it best in saying, “Everybody has gaps in themselves. Everybody also has things that can complement those gaps.”
References:
Castillo-de Mesa, J., & Gómez-Jacinto, L. (2020). Connectedness, Engagement, and Learning through Social Work Communities on LinkedIn. Psychosocial Intervention, 29(2), 103–112. https://doi.org/10.5093/pi2020a4
