The world is your cheerleader
What if everyone was on your side?
I love when I begin a coaching session with a client and they are just bursting to tell me about what happened to them. In the most recent case, the man on my Zoom screen reported that he felt nearly no jitters during his last presentation, which was an astounding feat for someone who claims to have been debilitated by social anxiety.
“You know what it was?” he said. “I remembered the thing you told me. And I fully surrendered to it.”
Hmm… I hope I told him something good. Our last session had been months prior, with the holidays and who-knows-how-many-other clients in between. I could hardly recall our conversation at this point.
“Which…thing, exactly?” I inquired.
“The part where you said that everyone in the room wants me to do well.” He went on to explain that while these weren’t his close friends or family members, they were a group of people with whom he spent the majority of his waking life. His work colleagues have known him for years, and he realized that they did, indeed, want to see him do well.
“…everyone in the room wants me to do well”
Such is the case most of the time, even outside the boardroom.
People generally want to see us succeed, especially when it’s in person, in real time, because that makes for a more comfortable experience for them.
The alternative? First hand witnessing someone fail. That feels icky. There’s a reason we use the word “cringey” to describe a stand up comic flailing on stage. It makes us, the viewer, cringe, simply by watching it happen. When we see another soar, the opposite happens: it often inspires and uplifts. The energy in the room is stronger and more positive.
Now, it is true that we may fall into the comparison trap every now and again - especially in the realm of social media. Sometimes seeing another person crush it stirs up our own feelings of insecurity. When that happens, though, it is 100% about the person watching, not about the person performing. An evolved mind can use that feeling of discomfort as a means to recognize areas in which they want to improve. Ideally this can fuel them to do so, rather than cause negative feelings towards the other person.
With this in mind, what if we went through life believing that the entire world is rooting for us?
That our success IS their success?
That us being our best selves serves not only us, but everyone in our vicinity?
How would you go through life today knowing the world is on our side?