Performance and Anxiety
Some people suck their thumbs.
My nephew sucked his thumb incessantly. The little tyke constantly had his thumb-finger in his mouth-orifice.
My sister (his mom) even bought him what we called “a space thumb.” Basically it was a plastic glove that covered his thumb, and locked on to his wrist like a handcuff. It was to no avail. He cracked the code and would sit with his thumb-in-mouth and plastic hanging down his arm (quite triumphantly, I might add).
Fortunately, my brother was a more carrot and less “space thumb” type of motivator. He told my nephew (4 at the time) that he would give him $100 dollars if he would stop sucking his thumb for a month. Apparently, $100 is unfathomable wealth for a toddler because it worked. Score one for capitalism.
Some people can’t stop sucking their thumbs.
In high school I had a friend who sucked his thumb before wrestling matches. What made this scene particularly incongruous was his being a monster! In other words, he was jacked. He looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger if Arnold had taken copious steroids.
The most entertaining part was not his sucking his thumb, but our opponents’ reactions. They would stare, mouth agape, with not-so-subtle judgy faces.
It was a hoot! Inevitably, they would underestimate him. He would have them pinned within 8 seconds. . . regularly. It was almost as if he was sucking his thumb to psych out his opponents.
But I knew his major weakness. It was something I discovered while on the wrestling team with him (awkward).
Anyhow, I knew he had weak ribs. I would reach across his chest, grab a handful of rib, and rip them to the side! He would yelp like a parent stepping on a lego for the third time that day. After shocking him, he was fairly easy to pin and beat.
What is my point in telling you all this? That it’s cool to suck your thumb! Wait, wait. Nope. That’s not it.
It’s that our insecurities will cause us to self-soothe, but that inevitably make us susceptible to an epic downfall: 8, 9, 10. . . you’re out!
In business (and life), we have a tendency to self-soothe through a show of strength, performing, numbing, or escaping.
These are responses to our not feeling secure in our value or in our connections.
When we are younger we are forming our senses of self. Typically, our sense of self-value and our sense of security in relationships comes from our relationship with our parents.
If they are secure (consistent) relationships the child will learn to trust connection with others and anticipate intimacy and acceptance. This DIRECTLY relates to the business-world. Many people, subconsciously, are trying to protect their “connection” with others by demonstrating their value through anxious activity: over-performance, comparing and unhealthy competing, manipulating, controlling, doing the grunt work, etc. Basically, this is a continuation of a role developed in their early childhoods.
Because they were not secure in their relationships they create a role to establish value and a feeling of certainty. Common roles include the joker, performer, golden child, sin-eater, the compliant one, rebel, etc. Often these roles get translated into our careers and in our relationships.
Because these roles literally felt like our life-line to others and to a sense of security, we are wary to abandon them.
Similarly, most people find a way to self-soothe to manage their internal dissonance. If we are not in touch with our intrinsic value—which all of us have in abundance—we are forced to numb or hide our lack of feeling worthy.
This behavior can come in many forms: addictions, over-performance at work, establishing dominance, working out too much, not working hard at work, etc. Basically, we are forced to create a smokescreen of value because we feel valueless. In fact, many people have internalized that they aren’t just worthless, but a burden. This type of subconscious self-belief is painful so it must be tempered through self-soothing behavior (sometimes thumb-sucking).
These responses to feeling insecure are what create chinks in our armor. They create a near-inevitability of self-sabotage or being dominated by a competitor. Essentially, we are posing as something we do not believe ourselves to be, so we have an underlying anxiety about being exposed (all of this is subconscious, of course).
The alternative is to feel secure in our relationships and in our self-value. When this is our internal disposition, business becomes fun and exciting! We won’t have a self-destruct timer slowly counting down in the back of our minds. We won’t be anxious about being replaced or beaten. Failures won’t feel permanent. Losses don’t feel inevitable.
Instead of producing FOR our value we produce FROM our value.
The million dollar question is “how does one acquire such a beautiful secure self-belief?”
The answer is seemingly paradoxical. It isn’t by learning that you (or your employees) are valuable. It isn’t by learning to trust your relational security. It isn’t by doing some sweet-a$$ affirmations in the mirror (as co-created by your life coach).
It’s the opposite. It is to realize that our coping mechanisms (self-soothing and protection) are outdated adaptations. Our experiences when we were younger are no longer our reality.
We are not a burden.
We are not valueless.
Our relationships are not insecure.
The capacity (or lack thereof) for our parents to make us feel completely secure has no bearing on our worth. When we recognize our “old patterns” or “adaptations,” we are able to dismantle them.
The “magic” is that our intrinsic value and relational security has been waiting for us. It is already in place, and we only need to remove the false beliefs blocking our access to them.
As you can imagine, this changes everything. It would take another 16 blogs simply to list the benefits of re-aligning with our authentic self and value.
For now, however, just remember a couple of key points:
Insecurity is nearly universal.
Insecurity is predominantly a hold-over from a different season in your life.
Self-value and relational security are present in your life (but simply covered up).
Sucking your thumb really psychs out your competitors.