How To Eliminate the Pressure So That You Can Enhance Your Career Anytime You Want

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the science-backed practice that not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

When I’m asked about careers, it usually falls into one of three categories – how to enhance one’s career, achieve a specific goal, or transition into a new one. 

Regardless of the reason, there are three biases that repeatedly show up in these conversations. These biases are the very things that create the pressure cookers that prevent individuals from making the decisions and taking the actions to make the changes they want, whether that’s more satisfaction, revenue, impact, or a combination of all three.

In order to dial down the pressure you may also be experiencing in your career, you first need to understand these biases and the importance of acknowledging and overcoming them to catapult yourself forward.

The first of the three biases is the LINEAR BIAS. The linear bias is the belief that our life and work should always be moving forward and upward. 

While society tells us that we should always be progressing, life just doesn’t work this way. Sometimes it pauses; sometimes it oscillates; sometimes it moves two steps forward and one step back. 

In the book Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Fellier, he identifies over 116 disruptors, including lay-offs, illness, births, moves, and divorce. He points out that this expectation around life being linear puts a great deal of anxiety on us. That pressure to always be ascending causes us to be in a constant state of self-judgment. This self-made pressure leads to underperformance and undermines our careers.  

If something happens, it’s supposed to happen. You can fight it or not fight it, but it’s still real. 

That judgment and resistance to accepting what’s happening is part of the additional pressure we unwittingly allow into our world. This results in the inability to break through to new levels or enhance our careers at the rate we want. 

When you release the idea that you need to be constantly progressing, you’ll find you can relax, trust yourself, and have your eyes open to the golden opportunities in front of you. 

The second bias is the SCARCITY BIAS. The scarcity bias states that there is not enough of what you need. 

You may feel there isn’t enough opportunity, time, or money to be successful. You may think the industry is too saturated and there’s not enough need in the marketplace for your talent.

You and I both know your talent is needed. Has anyone ever been grateful for the service you offered? I’m betting they have. People need what you have to give. Don’t let this bias that there’s not enough, hold you back from leading your desired career.

The third bias is the HARD WORK BIAS. The hard work bias is that success is a result of hard work.  We know this isn’t true.  If it was true, everyone who worked hard would be successful.

This unconscious idea that achieving your goal needs to be difficult is precisely why so many people’s days are ruled by low-grade stress, and it gets in the way of building your career to the level you want. 

We don’t get what we want in life; we get our habits. 

I was talking to an attorney, James, this week.  As a partner at his firm, he’s responsible for bringing in new business. Three years ago he landed the firm’s largest account. Since then he hasn’t brought in any new business. Because of this, he says his confidence is shattered; he wonders what is wrong with him and why he can’t follow through on his good ideas.

Through our conversation, I saw that he held all three of these biases.  They were affecting how he managed his days and the results of his career.

Biases shape our habits, so it’s important to be aware of them when looking to build a rewarding career. 

Do you insist that you should be farther than you are today? Do you seek opportunities or tell yourself there isn’t enough time, opportunity, or support to succeed at your greatest desires? Do you make things harder than they need to be? 

If any of these apply to you, the best way to have a massive shift in your career is to recognize these biases and understand that when we’re coming from these low-grade emotions, we’re actually resisting the very thing we say that we want. 

Here’s the practice that will allow you to eliminate the pressure and enhance your career anytime you want.

1. Get honest about your biases. Step outside of yourself and become the observer. How do you resist allowing yourself to expand? Do you spend everything you make? Are you addicted to the adrenaline of being too busy?
2. Think of a client that you’ve already helped or a time when you succeeded in doing what it is that you want to do more of now. Write it down. Recount the experience and how great it was for the client you served. Then, consider what might have happened if you weren’t there. When life feels like you’re in a pressure cooker, return to this moment to remember your ‘why.’
3. For one week, bring this same set of feelings to as many as you can. Focus not on what it will do for you or your career.  Instead, focus on what you are able to bring to others.  Then give it away for one week without attachment to the outcome.  Without any meaning other than you are doing your most important work.  That you are moving in your ‘right’ direction.   

We all have moments of pressure and stress. You can turn this around by dropping your old stories and your past and looking at how to give more of yourself. When you do this, your work opportunities will increase, your business connections will improve, you’ll feel better about yourself and your relationships, sleep better, and the stress and pressure that has become a habit over the past few years will dissipate. 

In this episode, I share:

• The three major biases that are causing resistance and stopping you from up-leveling your career
• How these biases form our habits and affect how we move through life
• The practice that will allow you to make a quantum shift and experience a breakthrough in your career 

Resources and related episodes:

• Tune in to the previous episode, The Most Influential Practice to Write Your New Future
• Listen to episode 69: The Six Habits of the Fulfilled Bold Leader
• Check out the book Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler
• If you’d like to be notified of when new podcast episodes are released, you can do so here: Playing Full Out
• Learn more about the Inside Out Method
• Connect with Rita on LinkedIn

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

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About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.