Success doesn’t make you feel safe

Sometimes we don't know how to move forward. We're stuck. And that, despite the fact that we should be satisfied. We made it, after all. We have the success we worked toward for so long.

To get here, we made hundreds of decisions. Not all of them came easily. Most just fell into place. Or we could reasonably anticipate what was coming.

Now it's different. We can't quite say why a decision feels so hard. Everything is still there. Our experience and the validation we've built up should give us a sense of safety. But they don't. Or at least not the way we need right now.

Where confidence usually comes from

To make clear decisions, we need inner confidence. We need something to set against the ruminating, the doubts, and a certain sense of being lost.

However, we’re usually not aware of why we feel confident. Or why we don’t.

Confidence comes from experience.

I often open this topic with a question: "How confident do you feel pouring yourself a glass of water?"
After the first puzzled look, the answer is usually "very confident."

Of course, we've done it thousands of times. We know how it works and we don't even think about it anymore.

Experience is a reliable source of confidence.
It's the knowledge that we understand every small step and can assess all the risks and opportunities. We’ve practiced it. We have the certainty that we know what we’re doing.

This inner conviction is rock solid. It doesn't waver just because we spill a little water once in a while.

When we learn something new, we still feel uncertain.

It’s different in new situations. We don't yet have the physical or mental capacity. We lack the practice and the ease that comes with familiarity.

The same is true when we have no sense of the consequences. We feel in the dark. We don't know exactly what happens in the worst case, or what we stand to gain in the best.

With more experience, we become even more confident, because we have more practice and a clearer picture of what's ahead.

Success becomes the foundation.

When something works the way we imagined, our reward system responds. We feel good. We succeed.

And so success becomes our foundation. We're naturally wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure. So we see failure as bad and success as worth pursuing.

Every time something goes well and we succeed, we're reinforced. Our inner safety grows.

Like a tracker following a trail, we follow what comes naturally and where we get things right. That's a good thing, because it helps us recognize our strengths, inclinations, and interests.

Success becomes not just a goal, but an anchor for our decisions.

We never question it.

"Never change a running system." We apply this IT principle to many areas of life. There's no reason to change what works.

That's a smart approach, efficient and effective. We let what fits keep running. We only change things when they stop working.

As long as we're successful, we can rely on that as a foundation for our confidence. What has been stable and worked well will continue to do so.

Unless it doesn’t.
If we're honest, there were probably situations even before this when we didn't feel very safe. Even though we were successful.

We've internalized the idea that success gives us safety to such an extent that we no longer question this equation. And in social media, movies, and stories, this narrative is reinforced time and again.

That’s why it hardly occurs to us that inner safety can be independent of success and experience. And should be.

When success is no longer enough

Success is and always has been shaky ground. Especially when we don't have a clear and useful definition of what success actually means to us.

Many people use things and circumstances as benchmarks that they cannot influence 100% on their own. Whether it’s the number of customers, revenue, or even just reactions to a post.

On top of that, our systems get more complex as we grow. And more success brings more responsibility. That’s why it’s important that we find a stable foundation for our inner safety.

Growth brings new demands.

As we gain more clients, raise our prices, or build recurring revenue, the pressure of the early days eases. But a new kind of uncertainty takes its place.
We’ve known this for a long time and prefer to ignore it.

We're no longer asking whether we can make it. We’ve gotten past that. Instead, we're wondering if we can maintain our success. Or if it was all just luck and chance.

The phase where we counted every dollar and did everything ourselves is over. We bring in freelancers, assistants, and more tools to support us.
We can afford to make larger investments. Naturally, we want to think those through more carefully.

Yes, we have more experience now. And yet we expect ourselves to handle every new situation well.
We feel like we've moved up a grade level. But we're actually in a completely different school.

Our decisions have far-reaching consequences, we have more responsibility for ourselves and others.
That’s our new reality, and we have to adjust to it.

When our business grows, we have to grow too.

Results don't provide a stable foundation.

In fact, our experience gives us a view into the past. So does our past successes and achievements. What we need now is a stable anchor for the future.

Most of the time, we're in a comfortable position at this point. Things are running well, and we could just keep going as we have.

But we sense that something is shifting.
We know change is part of life. We don't want to just repeat the past, we want to grow. Today, we’re setting the course for the next chapter.

Growth is always a step into the unknown. We don’t know if we’ll continue to achieve good results. We can’t guarantee success. And already, our confidence and inner foundation begin to waver.

There's no promise of success or good results. If they are the basis for our inner safety, we're building on uncertain ground.

Competence and worth are not the same thing.

We need a more stable foundation. And we were born with one.

Success and results are signs of a competence we have acquired over time. However, they have nothing to do with our worth as a person.

From an early age, many of us are taught that we have to prove our worth.
So it makes sense that we want to shine through our achievements. Or we take the rebel route and refuse to play along.
Either way, we're measuring our self-worth by other people's reactions.

We can't prove our worth. And we don't need to.

We are 100% worthy. Period.

We can't increase our worth, nor can it decrease. No matter what we do, how successful we are, or how many mistakes we make.

That also means mistakes don't make us a worse person. And success doesn't make us a better one.

When we accept and internalize this, we have a stable foundation for inner safety that no one can take from us.

Competence shows in what we do, and that's within our control.
Worth comes from who we are. Simply by being here.

Even if we've been told otherwise and it has felt like the same thing for a long time:
Success and value exist independently of one another and do not influence each other.

The scaffolding has to grow too.

And despite being 100% worthy and able to use that as a foundation for inner safety, we'll still be shaken time and again.

Change challenges our competence. We can no longer rely on past experience. These uncertainties are a sign that we need to adapt.

We've built ourselves a good scaffolding. It's exactly right for building a one-story house. That's what it was designed for, and it works. Then the house is finished.
Now we start thinking it would be great to add a second floor.
The old scaffolding hasn't become bad because of that. But it wouldn't support the new weight. We have to reinforce it.

That's the image I have when I think about difficult decisions.
The structure is wobbling because the scaffolding isn't strong enough. Because what we built before didn't prepare us for what comes next.

We could start building right now. But we'd risk instability and collapse. Or we can look at how we made the scaffolding solid in the first place and strengthen that first.

When we start to feel unsteady facing new, difficult decisions, that's a good sign. It means the business is growing.
Now it's time to align our sense of safety and our decision-making frame accordingly.

Confidence comes from within

More experience and better results won't make the scaffolding more stable.
Inner safety can only come from within. We have too little control over external factors.

Two questions come up here:
If my worth is unchangeable, how is it possible that I sometimes feel safe and sometimes don't?
And does that mean I need more self-trust?

We don't know the outcome.

Just as self-worth and a feeling of self-worth aren't the same thing, there is also some confusion about the word self-confidence.

Dorsch, the German Encyclopedia of Psychology, describes self-confidence as "the feeling of being able to cope with potential difficulties and accomplish something through one's own efforts."
(Dorsch)

This definition implies a kind of certainty. As if we already knew how the future would unfold. And that it would go the way we want.

At least, when it comes to decisions, that falls short.

For me, self-confidence means being able to handle the consequences of a decision well. Regardless of how it turns out.

So it's not about the certainty that we'll succeed.

We don't let ourselves down.

What matters far more than the outcome is our relationship with ourselves while we're carrying a decision out. That's how we get to enjoy not only the goal, but also the process.

Self-confidence then means we're always on our own side. Even when things get hard. Even when something goes wrong.
We can count on ourselves to stay in our corner. And we're never alone, even when others step away.

It's the trust and the confidence that we won't abandon ourselves. No matter what happens.

We are our own best friend.

When I talk about self-confidence, I'm thinking about a best friend.

Many people worry they'll let themselves get away with everything if they're not strict with themselves all the time. But it’s not about pampering ourselves or thinking everything we do is great.

We can be critical with ourselves. As long as we put down the pointed moral finger.
It's better to view ourselves with the sincerity of a best friend who always, without exception, has our best interests at heart.

Mistakes are inevitable. With self-confidence, we forgive ourselves for them.
Only then can we correct them, adjust the strategy or even the decision itself, and keep moving forward.

Self-confidence is the attitude we choose, every single day.

Safety is a decision.

At its core, the stable scaffolding starts with two decisions.

First, we decide to accept our worth and stop questioning it. We choose self-worth.

Second, we decide to stop beating ourselves up when things don't go as planned. We choose self-confidence.

These two decisions become the foundation for everything else.
They give us a sense of security that doesn't depend on validation, results, or success.

That anchor is stable, no matter how uncertain and stormy life becomes.
Because it comes from deep within us.

Decisions get easier

We will never be able to predict the future. Decisions will always be uncertain. No matter what we do, we don't know whether the outcome will be what we hoped for.

Until now, we've been at the mercy of consequences because we've tied our self-worth to results. We can change that deliberately.

The inner anchor gives us stability.

That leaves the question of what this actually means.

Most people assume we need success and results to feel confident about future decisions.
We now know that neither provides a stable foundation. We can't guarantee either one.

Until now, we've made decisions based on past experiences.
Once we draw on inner confidence instead, we can shift the focus.

The point is that we don't have to be afraid of failure. For sure, it wouldn't be the outcome we'd hoped for. But it wouldn't be the end of the world either, because we're still in our own corner. That gives us a sense of safety.

With this inner anchor, we can make decisions from a desired future.
Not based on what we think is realistic, but based on who we want to be and what we want to stand for.

Through inner confidence, we can handle even unwanted consequences more steadily.

Here's how this helps with decision-making.

Uncertainty loses its grip.

Even inner safety doesn't prevent us from making mistakes, feeling disappointed, or sometimes failing.
This uncertainty is part of life. It's unavoidable.

We will continue to face uncomfortable decisions in the future. At least if we want to remain successful. No one can take that responsibility from us as solopreneurs.
It also remains true that we won't know what consequences our decisions will bring.

The difference is that we can develop a different relationship with that.
We no longer have to rely only on external certainties. We have access to a different kind of stability that no one can take away from us.

This makes it easier to accept the uncertainties. We factor them in. And we have something stable to come back to.

Inner safety helps us handle external turbulence more steadily.

Our worth was never a question of success

No matter how much we want to know how our decisions will play out, it's not possible. We can't predict the future.

Decisions remain uncertain.
But confidence and safety don't come from knowing the outcome. They come from our relationship with ourselves.

We realize that our worth isn't determined by our results.
We forgive ourselves for mistakes, because we're always on our own side. So we don't beat ourselves up when things turn out differently than expected.

Mistakes don't make us a worse person.
And success doesn't make us a better one.

Whatever happens, we never let ourselves down.
That's the inner safety that makes decisions easier.