How Comfortable Are We With Ourselves?

There is a question I find myself returning to more often as I grow older: how comfortable are we, really, with ourselves?

It sounds like a simple question, but I suspect many of us would find it difficult to answer. We spend much of our lives working towards something, whether it is a better position, a more successful business, greater financial security or the respect of those around us. We become accustomed to measuring our progress through what we achieve and how others respond to us.

In business, this is particularly common. We are surrounded by competition, expectations and comparisons. There is always someone growing faster, earning more or receiving greater recognition. Even when things are going well, it can be difficult to feel entirely satisfied because our attention has already moved to the next challenge.

I understand this way of thinking. Ambition has been an important part of my life, and I continue to believe that setting high standards for ourselves is a good thing. Without ambition, many worthwhile ideas would never become reality. But over the years, I have come to see that there is a difference between wanting to improve ourselves and feeling that we are never quite good enough.

The first encourages us to grow. The second can leave us chasing something that always seems just beyond our reach.

When we are young, much of our confidence comes from outside ourselves. We want to prove that we are capable, that our ideas have value and that we deserve the opportunities we have been given. A promotion, a successful investment or a compliment from someone we respect can make us feel that we are moving in the right direction.

There is nothing unusual about this. Recognition is encouraging, particularly when we have worked hard to earn it. The difficulty comes when we begin to depend on it too much.

If our sense of worth rises and falls with every success or disappointment, we place ourselves in a difficult position. Business is unpredictable. Markets change, plans fail and even the most experienced people make mistakes. If we allow every setback to become a judgment on who we are, it becomes much harder to recover and move forward.

I have learned that confidence built entirely on achievement can be surprisingly fragile.

A person may appear very successful to the outside world and still feel an enormous need to prove themselves. They may have reached a position that others admire, yet remain troubled by the thought that someone else is doing better.

On the other hand, I have met people who carry themselves with a quiet confidence that has very little to do with wealth or status. They know their strengths, but they are also comfortable acknowledging what they do not know. They can accept criticism without feeling personally attacked, and they do not need to turn every disagreement into a contest.

I have always admired that quality.

In business, being comfortable with ourselves can make us better leaders. When we are secure in our own judgment, we are less threatened by people who have different opinions or greater expertise in a particular area.

We can hire talented people without worrying that they might outshine us. We can admit when someone else has a better idea. We can change our minds when the evidence suggests we should.

These may sound like small things, but they are not always easy, particularly for people who have spent years being expected to provide answers.

A leader who feels the need to be right all the time can create an environment where others become reluctant to speak honestly. People learn to agree rather than challenge, and important problems may remain hidden until they become difficult to resolve.

I believe one of the signs of a mature leader is the ability to separate personal pride from the needs of the business.

Sometimes that means accepting that a decision was wrong. Sometimes it means allowing a younger colleague to take the lead. At other times, it means recognising that the organisation has changed and that the methods which worked twenty years ago may no longer be the best ones today.

None of these things diminishes a person's experience. If anything, the willingness to adapt shows that experience has taught us something valuable.

Being comfortable with ourselves also changes the way we respond to competition.

Competition can be healthy. It encourages businesses to innovate, improve their services and find better ways of serving customers. Without it, there would be less incentive to challenge established ways of doing things.

But there is a difference between learning from a competitor and allowing their success to determine how we feel about our own progress.

I have seen how easy it is for businesses to become distracted by what everyone else is doing. A competitor enters a new market, announces an ambitious expansion or attracts attention for a particular achievement, and suddenly there is pressure to respond.

Sometimes a response is necessary. But sometimes the better decision is to remain focused on what we understand, what we do well and what we are trying to build over the long term.

Not every opportunity is right for every business, and not every form of growth is worth pursuing.

The same is true in our personal lives. We can appreciate another person's achievements without feeling that they somehow reduce our own. There is room for different definitions of success, and I think we become happier when we stop assuming that everyone must follow the same path.

Of course, being comfortable with ourselves does not mean becoming complacent.

I would be concerned if someone told me they had reached a stage where there was nothing left for them to learn. The world continues to change, and we must remain curious enough to change with it.

For me, self-confidence and humility should go together. We should have enough faith in our abilities to take on difficult challenges, but enough humility to recognise our limitations and seek advice when we need it.

Some of the most capable people I have encountered have been those who ask thoughtful questions. They are not embarrassed by what they do not know because their purpose is to understand the problem, not to impress the people around them.

That attitude is particularly important when working across generations.

As we grow older, it is natural to draw on our experience. We have seen businesses succeed and fail, lived through economic uncertainty and learned lessons that are difficult to appreciate until we have experienced them ourselves.

But younger people have knowledge and perspectives that we may not possess. They are often more familiar with emerging technologies, changing consumer behaviour and new ways of thinking.

If we are comfortable with ourselves, we do not need to regard this as a challenge to our authority. We can see it as an opportunity to learn.

I believe the best relationships between generations are built on mutual respect. Experience has something to offer youth, and youth has something to offer experience. Neither has all the answers.

There is another aspect of being comfortable with ourselves that I think becomes more important with age: learning to live with our mistakes.

Anyone who has spent a lifetime making decisions will have regrets. There will be opportunities we missed, people we misunderstood and situations we wish we had handled differently.

It is easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and wonder why we did not make a different choice. But we must remember that decisions are made with the information, experience and circumstances available to us at the time.

That does not excuse poor judgment or remove our responsibility for the consequences. We should acknowledge our mistakes and, where possible, put things right. But once we have learned what we can, there is little value in allowing regret to occupy the rest of our lives.

I think being at peace with ourselves requires a certain amount of forgiveness, including the ability to forgive ourselves.

This is not something that comes automatically with age. Some people carry old disappointments for decades, while others seem able to accept life's imperfections and continue moving forward.

I am increasingly convinced that the latter is a skill worth developing.

When we are constantly trying to prove ourselves, it can become difficult to enjoy what we have already achieved. We move from one target to the next without taking much time to appreciate the journey.

Yet there comes a point when we should ask what all that effort is ultimately for.

Is it simply to accumulate more, to gain greater recognition or to reach a position where nobody can question our success? Or is it to create a life in which we can work with purpose, enjoy meaningful relationships and feel reasonably content with the person we have become?

I do not believe these ambitions are mutually exclusive. We can continue building businesses, pursuing new ideas and setting challenging goals while also learning to appreciate where we are today.

In fact, I suspect we make better decisions when we are no longer driven entirely by the need to prove something.

We become more patient, more willing to listen and less inclined to pursue opportunities for the wrong reasons. We can take a longer view because our judgment is not constantly being influenced by the desire for immediate recognition.

For younger people beginning their careers, I would offer a simple thought. Work hard, develop your abilities and do not be afraid to aim high. But try not to measure your worth entirely through the opinions of others.

There will always be people who are more successful by one measure or another. There will also be setbacks that make you question your abilities. Neither should determine how you see yourself.

Take pride in your work, treat people fairly and remain open to learning. Over time, these habits will give you something more lasting than the approval that comes with any single achievement.

As for those of us who have spent many years in business, perhaps we should occasionally ask ourselves whether we are still pursuing our ambitions because they genuinely matter to us, or because we have become accustomed to the pursuit.

It is not always an easy distinction to make.

I still enjoy being involved, learning new things and seeing worthwhile ideas develop. I hope that curiosity never leaves me. But I am also learning that there is satisfaction in no longer needing every achievement to say something about who I am.

Perhaps that is one of the quieter rewards of growing older. We begin to understand that our value is not determined solely by what we own, the positions we hold or the recognition we receive.

We are the sum of our decisions, our relationships, our values and the way we treat others over many years.

And if we can reach a point where we are comfortable acknowledging both our strengths and our imperfections, while still having the curiosity and courage to improve, I think we will have achieved something important.

After all, success means very little if, at the end of the day, we cannot be comfortable with ourselves.