by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Checking In With Your Assumptions, Intentions, and Motives: Are You Living From Presence or Performance?
Sometimes, we can feel all the restless symptoms of the Void even though, on the surface, it seems like we’re doing everything right:
We show up as a ‘good’ or ‘nice’ person; we have the career and the relationship; we may even give to our community in some way….all of these things are, of course, good things but it’s possible to tick every single box in life and to still feel restless, anxious, depressed, stuck, or haunted by that quiet whisper that keeps saying that there’s more.
When that happens and you find yourself going around in circles, then it’s time to start digging deeper because, sometimes, what looks like a ‘good’ life on paper can actually be an unreal one in practice – one built on unreal assumptions, intentions, and motives that don’t actually belong to us.
If that’s the case, then no matter how good we try to be or how much we achieve, something inside will always feel…off because we’ve started to live in performance more than we have our own presence.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Table of Contents
- Checking In With Your Assumptions, Intentions, and Motives: Are You Living From Presence or Performance?
- Why We Do What We Do (Without Knowing Why)
- Real vs Unreal
- Presence vs Performance
- How Presence vs. Performance Shows Up in Everyday Life
- Why This Matters
- Performance vs. Presence: How to Check In With Yourself
- Presence vs. Performance: The Final Word
Why We Do What We Do (Without Knowing Why)
A lot of the time, we do things without really knowing why we do them.
We just kind ‘do‘ them:
We repeat patterns, chase goals, and live according to values that we never consciously chose in the first place all whilst believing that we’re making our own choices.
In reality, though, we’re often just running on the autopilot of the ego, keeping the shadow self at bay and telling ourselves that the resulting friction, frustration, and misery that this brings is just how life is (when it isn’t – all of that is a consequence of being unreal).
The problem with this is that the autopilot doesn’t know realness and instead only knows survival – it’s powered by fear, shame, and conditioning but not by truth.
The end result of all this is that we can end up living out other people’s scripts – for example, our parents’, our culture’s, our religion’s, our school’s, or society’s – all the while thinking that this is just who we are when it’s not.
This is always when the shadow self starts to whisper out to us from beyond the Void because – deep down – part of us knows we’re not being real.
Real vs Unreal
When I talk about being unreal, I don’t mean fake in the shallow sense in which the word is often used – instead, I mean that you’re disconnected from your true source.
Unreal in this context also means that the core assumptions, intentions, and motives driving you don’t belong to you and that they’re borrowed, adapted, or inherited from something external that your ego has mistaken as who you really are.
This could show up anywhere but most commonly:
- The values you live by might not be truly yours – for example, you might be carrying someone else’s definition of success.
- The goals you chase might be rooted in fear of being seen as a failure instead of as an expression of something you truly care about.
- The beliefs you hold might have been absorbed from people who didn’t know who they were either (and so the cycle continues throughout the generations until somebody gets real and breaks the chain).
- The way you react to emotional triggers might be a replay of old patterns rather than a reflection of who you could actually become in your realness once you’ve faced yourself and life.
And, so, even when your life looks good, it can still feel hollow because, deep down, your why isn’t coming from you or even connected to you in any real way.
Presence vs Performance
If you really want to know whether you’re being real or unreal, there’s one question that will tell you almost everything you need to know:
Are you acting from presence or from performance?
When you’re acting from presence, you’re coming from a state of inner regulation, wholeness, and safety which means that you’re grounded in the moment and don’t need the world to give you anything because you’re already full.
When you’re acting from performance, on the other hand, you’re coming from a perceived lack (of what nobody really knows) and so you feel threatened, incomplete, or unseen.
In this state, your actions are a way to fill the Void and to try and get something from the world that it can never truly give you (because you can only give it to yourself by returning back to the truth).
Presence builds but performance hides.
Presence creates real connection but performance manufactures approval.
Presence is rooted in wholeness but performance is driven by fragmentation.
At the deepest level, this distinction determines whether you’re building something real – a life aligned with your essence – or running away from something unreal, like shame, guilt, and/or trauma (the Unholy Trinity).
How Presence vs. Performance Shows Up in Everyday Life
To make this more concrete, let’s look at a few examples of how this difference between presence and performance shows up in everyday life:
1. The “Nice” Person
Sometimes, we show up as a ‘good’ or ‘nice’ person not because we genuinely are one but because we think it’ll help us win something like approval, affection, belonging, control, or whatever else helps fill the Void (though, ironically, none of these things can fill it anyway).
When this happens, kindness becomes a performance:
We’re not giving because we’re full; we’re giving because we’re empty and we hope giving will make the emptiness go away.
Real kindness, on the other hand, flows naturally when we’re regulated and present and there’s no hidden agenda as we give because love overflows from our own connection to wholeness – not because we’re trying to earn it to compensate for feeling fragmented.
2. The Career Climber
Many of us end up in careers that look impressive from the outside but have little to do with who we really are:
For example, we might be unconsciously trying to please our parents, gain validation, or prove we’re not worthless because of unfaced shame. We might tell ourselves that we “chose” this path, but in reality, it was chosen for us by old emotional debts we’re still trying to pay off (and never can).
The result? ‘Success‘ without fulfilment and achievement without meaning as we keep trying to perform instead of to just ‘be’ and then express something real.
On the other side of the coin, when our work is an expression of our gifts, presence drives it and we start to flow with life instead of against it.
3. The Relationship
Relationships are one of the most revealing mirrors for this dynamic:
If we enter a relationship out of presence, we connect from wholeness and so we’re there to give, to love, and to grow.
If we enter out of performance, though, we connect from lack and so we’re ultimately there to get, to control, or to ‘fix’ whatever we see in others as a projection of the disconnection from ourselves.
This is when lust disguises itself as love, or dependency as devotion and also when the drama begins because two egos can’t create intimacy.
Only two people living in realness can.
4. The Community Hero
Giving to your community is beautiful when it’s an extension of love and purpose but when the giving becomes a stage – when we need everyone to see how great we are – then it’s no longer generosity but self-advertising.
Again, the problem isn’t what we’re doing but why:
Presence gives without keeping score but performance gives to be seen.
Why This Matters
It’s so easy to live our entire lives without ever questioning our assumptions, intentions, and motives even (though it makes things harder overall because we have to live with the pain of the Void).
The ego actually loves it this way because once we start asking why, the illusion begins to crumble and this is always uncomfortable (as I like to say: The truth will set you free (but first it will p*ss you off and make you miserable).
Unfortunately (from the POV of the ego), questioning our assumptions, intentions, and motive is also the only way back to realness because the moment you become radically honest with yourself about why you’re doing what you’re doing, you create a gap between yourself and the performance.
This means that you see the act for what it is and – in that awareness – the act loses power.
This is the beginning of presence and presence is always where realness begins to rebuild itself.
Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to go as deep as possible into your own realness.
Performance vs. Presence: How to Check In With Yourself
The good news is that reconnecting with realness doesn’t require years of going around in circles with a therapist or making dramatic life changes – instead, it starts with small moments of self-honesty repeated consistently over time.
Here’s a simple process to help you check in with your assumptions, intentions, and motives:
Step 1: Awareness – Pause and Observe
At least once a day, pause before taking a meaningful action like replying to an email, making a decision, posting online, speaking to someone, or literally anything that matters to you and ask yourself:
- What am I hoping to get from this?
- What feeling am I trying to avoid?
- Who am I trying to impress, prove wrong, or please?
- If no one ever found out I did this, would I still do it?
This isn’t about judging yourself but about seeing yourself clearly.
You might be surprised by what comes up.
Step 2: Acceptance – Don’t Resist What You Find
When you notice that your motive comes from performance rather than presence, don’t shame yourself for it – that’s just the ego trying to stay in control.
Instead, accept that part of you and be grateful for it because it’s been trying to keep you safe in the only way it knows how.
Acceptance always opens the door for real transformation and gives you a real foundation on which to build.
Step 3: Action – Choose Realness
Once you’ve seen the truth and accepted it, you can start to act from a new place of presence.
Ask yourself again:
- What would my realness ask me to do here?
- What action would come from wholeness rather than fear?
- What feels grounded even if it’s uncomfortable?
Then do whatever action reveals itself here – even if it feels strange at first or even if you notice your old patterns trying to resist it.
Over time, these small choices compound and build on themselves exponentially and, before you know it, you’re living from presence more often than from performance.
Within a few weeks, you’ll start to feel lighter, more real, and more you.
Because what you’re really doing is returning to the truth that real always works.
Presence vs. Performance: The Final Word
Being real isn’t about being perfect, moral, or endlessly self-improving but about being honest – with yourself first and foremost and then with the world by extension.
Getting back on the path to realness is about checking in with your assumptions, intentions, and motives not with the intention of criticising them but of realigning them with something deeper that can’t be shaken by other people’s opinions, cultural scripts, or your own insecurities.
When you act from presence rather than performance, your life stops being a performance altogether and so you don’t have to prove, chase, or fill the Void anymore.
You just live.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to start building a foundation of real presence instead of just performing your way through this life then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you start figuring out why you do what you (and what to maybe do instead).
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
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