Balance Counselling and Coaching Ltd
PUT YOUR LIFE IN BALANCE By Kathryn Taylor
Throughout my career I have had occasions where I have doubted my own abilities and felt that despite the feedback and recognition being provided that I didn’t deserve the promotion, the praise or the award and that at some point I would be caught out and people would realise that I wasn’t good enough.
I
have been lucky that through these times I had people around me who recognised the signs and supported me to reduce those feelings and enable me to recognise my own achievements and value when those feeling of self-doubt, not being good enough, feeling a fraud or general anxiety kicked in. I still have days when I doubt myself, especially when I take on new challenges like writing my own column but have learnt to focus on what I have achieved and look at the facts not just what’s going on internally for me. Imposter syndrome
So, this month I thought I would focus on imposter syndrome, looking at what it is, how it affects individuals and what
are the signs you may be struggling with it before looking at how you can help yourself over-come it. What is it? This is a condition that affects a large number of the population and can affect you in every part of your life, be it work or personal. It stems from feelings of inadequacy, not being good enough, feeling like a fraud and that you don’t deserve to be where you are or have what you have. It causes feelings of anxiety that at any point you will be found out and that in turn will cause you to lose something that is important to you. That may be your job, your relationship, your standing, the way people see you or more importantly the way you want people to see you. The first time I remember suffering from imposter syndrome myself was after I returned to work from maternity leave and for the first time, in my career, I found myself feeling anxious about my abilities and overwhelmed by the work. I felt that my colleagues and peers didn’t think I was capable of doing my role anymore and I needed to prove to them as well as myself that I could cope and do a great job. My feelings were being exacerbated
by the fact that whilst I had been away a member of my team had been given the opportunity to step up and cover for me as a development opportunity and all the feed-back I was getting was that he had done a great job, but because of how I felt this just confirmed in my mind that the team didn’t think I was up to the role. Added to this, initially people continued to go to him with any questions or queries they had which was quite natural as: 1. It was what they had got used to in my absence 2. He had been involved in meetings and projects that I hadn’t as I wasn’t there so he had answers on things that I wouldn’t know about. 3. They were also trying to be supportive and help me to ease back into work slowly. At the time I just saw it as evidence that others felt I wasn’t up to the role and it backed up my negative thoughts and beliefs. This just added to my feelings of anxiety and overwhelm and increased the level of self-doubt I had. I was lucky that I had a colleague who had been through a similar experience when she came back from maternity leave and she recognised what was happening and that I was struggling and she reached out and got me to open up and share how I was feeling. She helped me focus on the facts and reframe my thoughts which in turn helped me recognise what was happening and over time helped me see the reality about my abilities and accept it. At one point it was widely thought that imposter syndrome predominantly affected women, which may well have been true, however, recent research has shown that this is not the case and Imposter syndrome can affect anyone in many different situations.
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LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
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