How do you know that you know what you know?

Reminder: It's time for your Weekly 1:1™

Today's agenda: How do you know that you know what you know?

The question on the table: What if you're already there, but can't see it?

Before we start: Settle in with this one. It might ask more of you than usual.

How do you know that you know what you know?

This is one of my favorite questions, and I find myself returning to it often, both in my own life and in the work I do with others. It sounds simple, almost circular, but sit with it for a moment and it opens up into something much bigger. What does it actually take to feel confident in what you've built, what you've learned, who you've become? What would it take to feel "arrived" in the place you've been working so hard to reach?

For most of my career, the answer to that question was: more. More experience, more credentials, another class, another certification, another degree. Each one felt necessary, like a missing piece that would finally let me feel settled. And to be clear, I don't regret any of it. I'm endlessly curious, and I love learning. That's not going anywhere.

But somewhere along the way, I started to notice a pattern. The goalpost kept moving. Each time I reached something I'd been working toward, there was already a new thing waiting on the other side of it; another thing I'd need before I could really feel like I knew what I was doing, before I could really call myself an expert, before I could trust myself fully.

What if you're already there, but you can't see it? What if you've already arrived, and you just haven't let yourself notice?

This isn't about stopping the learning or the growing. It's about something underneath that: the question of whether you actually believe what you already know. Whether you trust it. Whether you can sit in it without immediately reaching for the next thing to prove it's true.

There's a well-known line, often attributed to the Zen teacher Suzuki: "Each of you is perfect the way you are, and you can use a little improvement." I love this because both things are allowed to be true here, neither one pushing the other out. You are already whole. And you're also still growing. Both are true, all the time. Neither one erases the other.

I think a lot of us live as though only one of those things can be true at a time. As though admitting we already know something, that we're already capable, already enough, somehow means we'll stop growing. But it doesn't work that way. If anything, I think the opposite is true. The more settled you are in what you already know, the more space you have to keep learning, because you're not learning from a place of trying to fill a hole. You're learning from a place of curiosity.

More and more, I find myself simply knowing what I know, and trusting it. Being clear about what I don't know feels the same way now too - just information, not a gap I need to rush to close. Suzuki also wrote about what he called Beginner's Mind - the idea that the most seasoned practitioners approach their work with the same openness and curiosity as someone just starting out. I think that's what settling into what you know actually makes possible. You're not grasping anymore. You're just present, curious, and open to what comes next. That, I've come to realize, is what arriving actually feels like.

The question I'll leave you with this week:

Where in your life might you already be "there" - already capable, already enough, already arrived - but haven't let yourself feel it yet?

Lisa English, ACC, CMM is a Leadership and Executive Coach with deep expertise in Meetings, Events, Travel and Hospitality. The Weekly 1:1™ publishes every Tuesday at 8am PT. Subscribe at lisaenglishsg.substack.com or subscribe below.