An old colleague reached out to me a few weeks ago to ask if his LinkedIn profile picture was the right kind of picture. He’d gotten some mixed feedback and, remembering the LinkedIn 1-2-1s I used to host, he thought I’d be able to answer.

I don’t know about you, but as I go about my day there’s always a llittle voice in the back of my head wondering “am I doing this right?”. There’s a part of me (built on standardized tests, projects and work situations where there very much is only one right way of doing things) that is convinced there is a right way of doing things, and if I only think hard enough I can absolutely find it.

Right way to make a cinnamon roll? Check.

Right way to hand in your resignation? Check (and check-ity check – that was a new one just last month!)

Right way to parent, love, show up for each other, write a book? Check, check, check-ity check.

Mind you, I don’t know this right way (and there are at least 4 excellent ways of making cinnamon rolls, in my experience) but that little voice can be insidious.

It’s the same voice that says there’s only one way to be professional, a “right” amount of exclamation points and emojis to use in a work email, a right way to develop our careerpath, find a partner or build a life.

It’s all BS, of course.

There are many ways to do things right. And they tend not to be the same for everyone.

And yet we all want to make sure we’re doing the right things right.

I find it especially annoying when it comes to personal branding.

What’s the right amount of social media profiles to have? I don’t know, how many can you maintain happily and how many will actually help with your action plan?

What’s the right way to ask for a raise? It depends! There are many ways to do this. I would always recommend bringing some notes of what you’ve done that merits the raise, or of your market value compared to your salary, but there are as many ways of asking for a raise right as there are people asking for a raise.

Going back to the LinkedIn profile picture, I was able to provide an answer, if not necessarily the kind of answer he was looking for.

The right kind of picture, of course, is one that reflects the qualities you want others to associate with you, that are true to who you are and what you look like.

In this case, he was dressed to the nines – definitely a flatering picture any of us would be happy to have on display.

However, the elegant dress might have been at odds with a casual, approachable or irrevent person; it could have fit right in with a message of exclusivity and of belonging to a specific socioeconomic group.

Whether that is right for him (there is that tricky word again) only he can tell.

My advice was this:

1. Examine what qualities you want to reflect, and what qualities you believe the picture conveys
2. Determine whether they match or are too far apart, and if so, take action to change the picture for one more in-keeping with yourself and your brand
3. If you are not sure you can be objective in this, ask a couple of people you trust for their honest thoughts on what message your profile picture sends, then go back to step 2

The same way we analyze whether a LinkedIn pircture is right or wrong for us, we can analyse the rest of the decisions we make, and quiet that sly doubt.

What path follows my values, priorities and goals best? What actions and words match who I am and who I want to be?

That is your right way of doing things (and your right way of making cinnamon rolls). And it’s far more important than a group-chosen arbitrarily-decided way of doing things “right”.