Don’t confuse getting noticed with being seen.

GettingNoticedBeingSeen.jpg

Getting noticed is a wonderful feeling. Rousing, actually. A wake-up call to our capacity and maybe even our impact.

It’s that: “Hey, what you’re up to is attractive, alluring, enticing. I want to come a little bit closer.” It’s the raised eyebrow, wink + nod of “you’re on the right path, Love.” It’s the first step. It’s the foot in the door. It’s important.

It’s also fleeting. It does not endure. And it requires us to deepen in. To activate. To make it count.

Which is good. So long as what we are getting noticed for is aligned with our true selves, our art, our vocation, our purpose. What.We.Want.To.Be.Known.For.

And the flip is also true.

One of the things you might be fearing about your imminent success IS in getting noticed:

Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.

– Bob Dylan

I get that. The assumptions people make about you because they extrapolate one sliver of what they’ve noticed in you. The projections that show up as a result.

That’s why boundaries exist. (Make ‘em good.)

For the moment, let’s hold tight over here in the land of wanting to get noticed. Knowing your message, your art, your work needs exposure and noticing before it reaches the critical mass it so deeply desires.

A word of caution.

In a hunger to get noticed, I’ve seen people act incongruently in ways that are foreign to their soul…which sets them up for three paths of suffering:

  • Their Imposter Complex (which is what I call what you might think of as “Imposter Syndrome,” but here’s why I say Imposter Complex instead) will sound the deafening and defeating bullhorn of “FRAUD!”;

  • Any attention they get will feel hollow and false; and,

  • They will not see success come to fruition because the façade can’t be kept up.

So don't do that.

Related: People are lazy. We’re going to go ahead and imprint upon you how you show up. What you lead with. If you’re presenting with your high-minded research but secretly yearn to be known for your poetry, you’ve got to know that it’ll be tough for us to make that transition.

This is an important distinction and one that can be handled by a simple query. When you are about to do something with the intention of getting noticed, ask yourself: is this what I want to be known for?

Because it takes courage to swing out and do something to get yourself noticed.

And.

It takes even more courage to allow yourself to be seen. (Getting on someone’s radar is not the same as getting into their heart.)

This is a place of deep pain for many. They receive the winks, the nods, the open doors of noticing and assume parity with being seen. But then quickly feel the sting from NOT being met, understood, nor held. And then they proceed to make up they've "done something wrong". Fallen out of favour in some way.

Nope. It's not that. It's that getting noticed is a twinkle in time. Unlike being seen. That's for keeps.

Yes.

Your path likely requires that you, your work, your research, your art, your writing, your teaching, get noticed. To be sure. So work on the things that are right and true and congruent for you. Pitch. Pitch hard. Pitch often. Raise your hand. Ask the question. Answer the question. Challenge.

See where it takes you. But do not assume that people who have noticed you and your work can actually see you. Not yet.

If being seen is important to you (and it may well not be), follow up with time and tenacity and temerity and action and vulnerability and willingness to connect on deeper level, and then yes, you just may be seen. Truly and fully and enduringly.

Souls can only see truth. Not façade.

Lead with your lexicon. Call yourself forth with the specificity of what you want to be noticed for and THEN act from there. It’ll make it easier for us to see you. Because you’ve started the process by seeing yourself.

Check out my free training on the 5 ICONIC Shifts Leaders Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

Tanya