16 Comments
User's avatar
CallitADay's avatar

This is one of the nicest post I have read in recent times. It answers so many of my questions. It’s so easy to get carried away in people pleasing and why it isn’t easy the other way around? Constant conscious fight between the perception and seeking truth exhausts me at times.

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Anu Atluru's avatar

I like the articulation of the fight between perception and reality, thanks for reading

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MC's avatar
12hEdited

"Managing perception instead of pursuing truth" can easily become 99% of corporate work if you are not careful.

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Anu Atluru's avatar

💯 Also just occurred to me it’d be fun if I could guess who wrote each comment :)

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MC's avatar

??? What do you mean by "each comment"? Sorry I didn't get it 😅

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Excellent's avatar

This is very real.

Initial success can feel like it’s supposed to define your entire path. But it is important to continue to get work done without the fear of losing credibility for some breaking off some 'record’.

If you stay on that early successful path because that's the most pertinent to your reality, even great. But don’t cling to it out of fear of disappointing others. You’re going to grow, change, and evolve, and no matter what, someone will be disappointed anyway.

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Anu Atluru's avatar

Well said, thanks for reading!

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simran's avatar

"the antidote isn’t caring less about your work or the people judging it, but caring more about truthseeking"

need this on a visible note that i can look at anytime ❤️

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Anu Atluru's avatar

💛

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Kavya's avatar
29mEdited

Encore anxiety also comes from a "swing for the fences every time" mentality. Hot Take: There is a thing as peaking too early and it is partly within your control. Pace your plot accordingly. Phase your technology/product.

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Josh Ogundu's avatar

This is very true, especially since in todays world you’re judged creatively on what you’ve done most recently

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Rugved's avatar

Thanks for giving this a name ! Great read.

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Mary-Brennan Minarovych's avatar

My new mantra for this week :)

"Craft over calibration. Problems over people. Reps over reputation."

Great post, Anu, thank you for sharing!

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Skye Gill's avatar

My favourite artists all have one thing in common: they're always unapologetically themselves.

Being grounded in who you are and loving yourself, no matter any kind of outcome, is conducive to making art that your people will resonate with. If you are able to cultivate this relationship with yourself, the authenticity radiates from your work when no one's watching and when everyone's watching.

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Drew's Letter's avatar

Well put. This summarizes the cognitive bias of loss aversion parlayed over achievement and accomplishment instead of simply being out a few coins.

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Justin Reidy's avatar

Perhaps encore anxiety feels worse than impostor syndrome because it touches on more fears.

There's the fear you noted ("my genius will never be appreciated again"). But there's also a version that's an extended impostor syndrome ("my genius was more luck than skill, and I won't get lucky again").

And once you have any kind of audience, then toxic people pleasing becomes a factor ("I hope I don't disappoint my true fans!"!)

Maybe it's better to find public success posthumously! (Not really.)

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