Summary

The author of the article shares a personal journey of career advancement in the financial industry, revealing a deep-seated belief of inadequacy that drove their relentless pursuit of promotions.

Abstract

The author, a financial industry professional, reflects on their rapid ascent up the corporate ladder, fueled by a desire for recognition and success. Despite achieving multiple promotions and a prestigious executive title, the author felt an ongoing dissatisfaction and unquenchable thirst for more success. This led to strained family relationships, including missing a sister's wedding, and a realization that their self-worth was too closely tied to professional achievements. After consulting with a professional coach, the author uncovered a core belief of not being good enough, which was the driving force behind their pursuit of promotions. This revelation prompted a shift in focus towards self-validation and managing core beliefs, rather than external achievements.

Opinions

The author initially believed that career success and external validation were the keys to personal fulfillment.
Success in the workplace became an obsession for the author, lacking lasting enjoyment or fulfillment, as described by Jim Loehr.
The author agrees with Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener's sentiment that income has a limited exchange rate with happiness.
Through coaching, the author recognized the importance of self-awareness and the need to challenge deep-seated negative core beliefs.
The author suggests that self-validation should hold more value than the opinions of others for true contentment.
The author emphasizes the significance of identifying core beliefs, possibly with the help of a professional, to understand the underlying motivations for one's actions and aspirations.

I Hate Getting Promoted

But I love the dark truth I learned about myself when I did.

I missed my sister´s wedding.

A key client was visiting our headquarters on the same day, and my boss asked me to be his host in the city that weekend. I was 12% behind my yearly target, and it was already September. I desperately wanted to be on the November promotion list and could not afford to miss out on this opportunity. So I bailed on my sister and told her that I would make up for it.

She stopped talking to me, of course…

I have spent the last 12 years in the financial industry. Shortly after joining, I realised that I was not going home anytime before 19:00 (and that was on good days) and that many of my weekends or days off would be spent juggling through emails and responding to calls from different teams across the bank. When I would sleep, I would dream about client solutions, and when awake, my main concern in life was to make sure my clients were looked after. My whole life revolved around my job and my aspiration to become a senior executive.

And I did. I got multiple promotions and was able to climb the corporate ladder pretty quickly. It felt good, especially on the days that I would have the “promotion meeting” with my boss and s/he would give me the good news. I would feel very accomplished and fulfilled.

Life was good.

However, usually, less than a week later, I would still have this yearning to aspire for something bigger, something even higher than what I already had. And basically, that almost always meant the next promotion.

It came to a point where achieving more and more success at work became an unquenchable thirst. I felt that it was simply never enough, and I was never satisfied. I always wanted more, regardless of the friendships I lost along the way and family members who felt secondary to my work. In fact, it felt like they did not even exist in my life.

But hey, I was making loads of money and had that sexy executive title on my business card.

Something was not right, though. Why was I still not feeling good about myself despite all the career achievements? Was it possible that there was something deeper going on with me? For me, “the chase itself had become obsessive, devoid of lasting enjoyment or fulfilment” as Jim Loehr has famously put it. And I was starting to see what Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener meant when they said:

“Income appears to buy happiness, but the exchange rate isn´t great.”

I did not want to carry all this self-doubt around with me, so I decided to talk to a professional coach. And this was one of the best decisions I ever made.

And as a result, I realised there was something much deeper at play here. I started realising that my ambition to get more promotions was driven by my core belief of not being good enough.

You are probably wondering what I mean by “core belief”? right?

Core Belief — What Is It and How it Affects Us?

According to Aron Beck, who is one of the founders of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, core beliefs are our most deeply held assumptions about ourselves, others around us, and the world. “They are firmly embedded in our thinking and significantly shape our reality and behaviours” according to Anna Katharina Schaffner.

Worthlessness is one of the main categories of negative core beliefs about the self — which means believing that we are insignificant and a burden to others.

So How Did This Relate To Me And My Promotion?

I had to sit down with my coach and have a candid conversation. This is how it went:

Coach: Why are promotions important to you?
Me: because that is how I can be successful in life. To me, more promotions = more success.
Coach: Why is that?
Me: Because people take me more seriously and respect me more this way.
Coach: Why is that important to you?
Me: Because I care about what people think of me.
Coach: Why do you care about what people think of you?
Me: Because it is not a good feeling if I do not have positive validation from others around me.
Coach: what about positive validation from yourself?
Me: I don’t usually think about that, and it does not matter to me as much.
Coach: so you place more value on other peoples´ opinions of you than your own?
Me: (after a long pause….) well…

This was an epiphany. I realised that the main reason why I was feeling so drawn to the idea of achieving more promotions stemmed from my core belief that my opinion of myself did not matter. And I did not put much worth in me.

This simple exercise completely wow-ed me and gave me a whole new perspective. It shook the ground beneath my feet and was a total game-changer in the way I perceived my world. Getting more promotions was an excuse that made real sense on the surface: it made me think that they were actually what I was aspiring to achieve success and so happiness.

However, instead of continuing to aspire for more promotions, I saw the importance of being self-aware and managing my core beliefs better.

Identify Core Beliefs and Shake Them Off

Sometimes it is not so easy to identify core beliefs, and almost always, things are not as they seem. The reason why we make certain decisions or aspire to certain goals in life stem from something much deeper inside of us.

There are a few questioning techniques that one can use to get to them (you can use the questioning technique mentioned above). It is usually done best if you have a trusted friend or life coach helping you with it. In more severe cases, it is best if you seek professional help from a psychologist given that this technique is not a substitute for therapy.