Are you misreading between the lines?
Are you worried maybe you don’t have the confidence of those around you? Perhaps your boss gave you a confused look recently and you’ve taken it to mean they’re not happy with you. Or they’ve said absolutely nothing at all, you’ve seen nothing concrete in the their body language and yet you think to yourself I’m not 100% sure they think that much of me. You may be feeling invisible or you have this sneaking suspicion others are just waiting for you to mess up. Or perhaps you’ve become worried they don’t trust you with important things because they don’t think you’re ‘up to the job’. You don’t know for sure one way or another because nothing has actually been said. But it can be hard to shake these thoughts once they get a grip on you. They must come from somewhere right? You’re picking up on something and it’s making you very uneasy. But you say nothing. What you want is to feel confident. What you want is to feel the confidence of those around you. What you want is to know that who you are in this role is valued so you can finally just trust yourself and enjoy the career you’ve worked so hard for. You want to finally feel inspired AND inspiring! But you don’t say anything. You don’t check in or, if you do, you don’t believe what they’re saying to you. You don’t back yourself to just get on with things and let go of the inner nagging. What you’ve forgotten is that you are just guessing. You’re assuming you know exactly what others are thinking when you don’t. You’re relying on what you believe is your ‘inner knowing’. But your ‘inner knowing’ is at this point doing some serious self-sabotaging. Now I’m not ever going to tell you not to trust yourself. BUT sometimes the inner voice is doing everything it can to prove to you what it’s been telling you all along - you’re a fraud, a fake, an imposter and it’s only a matter of time before others figure this out too. When you believe this voice you stop trusting. You stop trusting yourself. You stop trusting others. You stop trusting everything is going to work out okay and you start massively hustling instead. You work your butt off to stop others seeing what you believe they inevitably will - that you haven’t a clue what you’re doing. You start looking for an escape route because you believe it’s only a matter of time before someone finds out the truth. But the truth is this is the only part of you which hasn’t a clue. It’s been telling you the same story for years even though time after time you’ve proved the story wrong. The truth is you wouldn’t have got to where you have without some inner confidence and belief. And you wouldn’t have got here without others having confidence in you too. You just need to start believing that you DO know what you’re doing. You have done yourself proud and will continue to do so. And also you’re human - you’ll make mistakes along the way and so does everyone else too.
*****
OR
If you struggle with imposter syndrome please get in touch. I’d love to help you turn your doubt and worry into self-confidence and trust. Let’s have a chat about ways coaching can help. Em 💛
