Welcome to this week’s free article of Level Up: Your source for executive insights, high performance habits, and specific career growth actions.
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Right up until I became a VP at Amazon, I constantly worried that I would not "succeed."
If you are worried, anxious, stuck, or struggling in your career, this will help.
First, let me reassure you that “it” is probably going to work out.
If you are reading this, chances are that you are highly educated, working in a good job, read and write English (even if it is a 2nd or 3rd language), and that you are here right now trying to find ways to improve yourself.
In short, your career story is very likely to have a happy ending!
Believing that and trusting in it can help you in many ways:
It can lower stress along the way.
Trusting that good work is enough reduces the need to work frantically.
The calm confidence it gives you is often a path to promotion. It conveys competence, not just effort.
It gives you more enjoyment of your years of life working your way up.
It gives you the confidence to change jobs if you need to.
Use this ACTION to increase this belief in yourself:
Take 5 minutes and write down where your career will end up if you just have solid success over time.
Look at your past and imagine you keep growing at roughly the same rate.
Ask what position that ends up in, with what salary and compensation.
(I'm not talking wild best case here, I mean the very probable good outcome)
For most people reading this, that will be a pretty good picture: Enough money and an influential job.
Now, whenever you worry, come back to this picture.
Let it give you comfort and inspiration.
Then, go back to work to make it happen.
Athletes envision success, and science shows that this actually helps them win.
Mental practice can be as powerful as physical training.
The same works for you, "corporate athletes."
Add visualization of your success to your toolbox.
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Your visualisation example is a great reminder of how powerful mindset can be. I’ve found that when you clear the deeper mental blocks—like fear of failure or self-doubt—it amplifies that effect. Trusting the process becomes easier, and the steps feel more natural, almost like the pieces fall into place on their own.
Have you seen how clearing those inner blocks impacts outcomes?