Is your career stalling?

Let's talk about the anxiety of "proving yourself" that plagues many Systems Engineers ⇓

I stared at the CEng application form again ...

It had been sitting in the "Important & Urgent" box for months. And for months I found every excuse not to touch it.

I cleaned the kitchen. I organised my desktop icons. I researched note-taking apps I didn't need.

Every time I opened the file I felt a genuine pit in my stomach.
It wasn't laziness.
It was fear.

As Systems Engineers we are trained to look for gaps. We spend our careers verifying requirements and worrying about the "unknown unknowns."

When I turned that critical lens on my own career it was paralysing!

A mistake ...

I felt like I was back in a university exam hall. I felt I had to write something profound to prove I was a "real" engineer.

I was judging myself against a standard of perfection that doesn't exist. I worried that if I wrote it down it wouldn't look impressive enough. I felt like a fraud. The frustration and guilt were piling up.

I know, I know: BS! Right?

I was trying to talk myself out of success. Finding all the reasons why it could go wrong.

It was self-sabotage. And I see so many doing the same. To their work. To their Career.

Then I realised I was making a fundamental category error.

I was treating the application like a Proposal. I was acting like I still had to build the bridge.

But the bridge was already standing!

Here is the mindset shift that killed my procrastination:

Your certification is not a Test. It is an Invoice.

When you send an invoice to a client, do you stress about whether you are "good enough"? Do you worry that you are a fraud?

No. You simply list the line items of the work you have already finished.

• You already stayed up late to fix that integration error.
• You already managed the difficult stakeholder.
• You already solved the problem.

The value has been delivered. The "As-Built" documentation is done.

The application form is just the administrative paperwork to collect the receipt.

So?

Stop trying to "prove" your potential. You cannot prove potential on a form. You can only document history.

Once I stopped trying to be impressive and started just "invoicing" my past work the block vanished. I wasn't writing a masterpiece: I was processing a claim for status I had already earned.

Your Challenge:

Is there a document: a report or an email you are avoiding because you don't feel "ready"? Maybe your CV?

Open it today. Look at the blank page and tell yourself:

"I am not building the building today. I am just filing the paperwork for the one I already built and now invoicing."

Then fill it out and hit send.

Collect your receipt.

Go get 'em!
​Alex "awaiting CEng review board review" Toth​
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