The psychology of success: why self-perception matters

What if I told you there may be a link between your self-perception and things like how much you earn, whether you hit your goals, your ability to form connections, and how likely people are to invest in you or your business?

When it comes to being successful, I think we're taught a lot of unhelpful and incorrect things. For example, that success must be the result of struggle. I actually don’t think that’s true. You can burn out with effort trying to make things happen and still get nowhere.

The reality of success depends on how you define it. But if you’re looking at wealth, for example, many people inherit it, get lucky or exploit the hard work of others to get it. So, how much you struggle doesn't directly correlate to that type of success. And yet so many of us have this kind of money story guiding our thoughts and actions, and it can really hold us back.

Success = not giving up?

I often hear the idea that the only difference between someone who is successful and someone who is not is that the successful person didn’t give up. And there’s definitely an element of truth in that, because the only guarantee that something will never work is if you stop trying to make it work. But there’s also something bigger that has way more of an influence, and that’s your identity and your self-perception.

What the science says

Numerous studies have found again and again that there is a direct correlation between self-perception and success. One study identified the link between poor self-perception and achievement inequality. Another that it is a predictor of life satisfaction. And yet another that self-perception is a significant influence on whether we achieve our life goals. And yet, despite its huge influence, self-perception isn’t something we ever get taught to interrogate. Which means we often just think it's fixed and don’t realise it can be changed.

What is self-perception?

Self-perception is what you believe the most to be true about yourself. What you’re capable of, who you are and the characteristics you have. Whatever is in your self-perception determines how you live your life every day. If you believe yourself to be an unmotivated person, for example, that's how you will behave. It’s as simple and straightforward as that. 

Something I repeat often in resilience coaching is that you can force discipline and consistency on yourself till the cows come home, but if you don’t see yourself as someone disciplined and motivated, it won’t last long. Your self-perception will shove in and push away anything that doesn’t align with it. Because who you see yourself to be is how you will think, feel and behave. And how you think, feel and behave determines your entire experience of life – as well as your outcomes.

You're not lazy, you just need to see yourself differently

Maybe you’ve had the experience of continually trying to make some kind of change for yourself and never quite getting there. You always sabotage at some point and then feel bad about yourself. Maybe you start criticising yourself with words like lazy or inept. The problem here isn’t that you’re incapable of change but that you’re starting in the wrong place. You’re starting by trying to change your actions instead of what’s actually driving them. What’s behind everything – your definition of you.

Two ways to make change

There are two ways to make change happen in your life. One is process-based change, which is essentially changing what you do, such as your habits, your actions and the systems you have in place. The other type of change is called identity-based change, and that is changing who you believe you are, i.e. changing your self-perception. In resilience coaching, we tackle both because I don't think change sticks without that.

Identity-based change is why you can do something like resilience coaching, and that big shift you’ve been trying to make for years seems to happen overnight. It’s not some kind of magic or manifestation; it’s just because you start to see yourself as the person who does those things, and then your thoughts and emotions line up behind that. And as emotions drive action, you start to behave like that kind of person too, and the change becomes inevitable.

Who you are matters more than what you do

One of the reasons I really like this approach to change is that it focuses on who you are, rather than traditional goal setting, which is just about what you do. I don’t think traditional goal setting really works for everyone, especially many people with ADHD. In my experience, changing your self-perception gets better outcomes without the pain and shame that can come with trying to manage the process of goals. 

While conventional change focuses on results, identity-based change focuses on the person you want to become. One of the reasons this works so well is that it’s so much easier to maintain habits when they feel like an expression of who you are rather than a restriction on your life. 

You can change your self-perception at any time

You can change what you believe about yourself at any time, and that's really powerful – and something we do in resilience coaching a lot. The key point to note is that whatever your current self-perception is, you created it, which means you are also the one who is capable of changing it. 

Ego, shame and what other people think

Something else that is worth thinking about when it comes to self-perception is what can warp this. I’m not sure that many people really see themselves clearly. Ego can warp it. Shame can warp it. And for so many people, there is this constant focus outside of ourselves – you know, that obsession that is so common – what other people think of us.

The big issue with looking outside yourself constantly like this is that you have no internal guidance mechanism. Instead of your self-perception being driven by solid, consistent internal truths, it’s derived from what someone else may think of you based on an action that might indicate their true thoughts or feelings. Self-perception that is linked to other people is on shaky ground. It means your self-worth is entirely determined by what you think others think.

So, the big shift with self-perception is to make sure that the way you perceive yourself is drawn from your own internal data and that you’re not basing it on others' views or judgments, or what you think those might be, especially because most of the time these are just assumptions.

What might stop you?

The good news is that you can change your self-perception at any time. What’s slightly harder is overcoming what is often in the way of that. A strong inner critic, a lot of shame, resistance to internal authority because of something like people pleasing. But removing those things is far from impossible. It’s what I do all the time with clients as a resilience coach. And the rewards are huge. Confidence, audacity, self-belief, nervous system regulation, progress in life – in short, success.

What does success mean to you?

And on that note, finally, not many of us give enough thought to what success actually means for us, and that’s often why it eludes us. If you stop and think about what success means to you, what really matters? What does a successful life look like? Personally, I don’t think it relates to status or stuff or income – I think it’s more about being able to wake up every morning and like the person you’ve become. And that's something that only you can have any control over.

Anyone can change self-perception (and success) at any time

I think the really great thing about this is that anyone can change how successful they feel and become whenever they want to. Inequality, discrimination, a lack of support and other factors create huge, tangible disadvantages, no doubt. But, still, regardless of your childhood, your resources, where you are right now, you can change so much simply by changing how you see yourself. Once you do that, that’s going to ripple out into how you feel about yourself, which will determine how you behave, and that’s going to start changing your outcomes really fast.