I’m often asked in my workshops when we work on confidence and humility. What if I become too confident? We worry that by implementing strategies to offset Imposterism we’ll go too far the other way. It’s particularly prevalent in our humble, modest kiwi culture where the fear of being a tall poppy exists.
We often consider modesty and humility to be the same as self deprecation and that to own our strengths, know our worth and celebrate our successes all of a sudden renders us narcissists!
There is an opposite to Imposter Syndrome and it’s called Dunning Kruger Effect named the guys who coined the phrase. If Imposterism is someone who’s good at what they do but doesn’t think they are then Dunning Kruger is the opposite. Someone who thinks they’re really good at something but often isn’t.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias where people who perform poorly on a certain task tend to overestimate their own performance. The problem is twofold, since not only do people have a certain inability, they are also unable to acknowledge their inability, therefore overestimating their capabilities.
I frequently am told all about someone’s 3 week trip to New Zealand ten years ago when I tell them I live there or when I mention I’ve studied and taught meditation for a decade a man once volunteered his knowledge on the subject by saying “I’m not a meditator but what I understand about mindfulness is….”
Wouldn’t it be a good thing to have this kind of confidence people often ask me? I respond by asking them if they like working with people who fit this description? Do they think of them as good performers? Would they select them for a job? Invite them to a dinner party? – you get the idea! Having low self-awareness and an arrogance about your capability isn’t an attractive quality. Yes it may get you a promotion (how many incompetent people get over promoted because of their confidence?) but they get found out eventually because they don’t deliver, they’re unable to perform at the level they pitch themselves at.
So if the Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias where people who perform poorly on a certain task tend to overestimate their own performance. Imposter experience is a bias that is cognitively predisposed towards our failings and why we’re not good enough. We struggle to acknowledge our skills and successes therefore thinking that everyone else is over rating us and one day we’ll get found out. We perform well but we can’t see it! It’s illusionary superiority (Dunning Kruger) versus illusionary inadequacy (Imposter).
Both are illusionary and a mismatch of our confidence and capabilities in opposite directions. What we’re aiming for is the middle ground.
On this continuum we have debilitating self doubt at one end which is when Imposter Experience is left unchecked and worsens. At the opposite end, if arrogance, ego and overconfidence gets to its worst it’s probably narcissism right? Described as a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for attention and admiration!
Each of these terms Dunning Kruger and Imposter experience exist on the continuum and the sweet spot we’re all aiming for is an alignment of capability and confidence in the middle. For that, those with imposter syndrome need to gain more confidence to match their abilities and those with Dunning Kruger may need to be less confident in their abilities. Both need to be closer to reality than their confidence allows them to believe!
Should we stop telling people they have Imposter Syndrome?
It’s a topic of discussion that’s come up a lot this year; should we stop telling women they have Imposter Syndrome? Is it really the fault of the organisation and an excuse that arises from what is actually discrimination and bias that leaves us feeling not good enough, that we need fixing?
My thoughts on this are yeah, nah. Here’s why.
Yes I agree with organisational responsibility to fix broken systems, do more in the equality space and address bias, but it’s not all about workplace culture. These things will exacerbate Imposter Syndrome (or Experience as I call it) but it doesn’t explain imposter experience in those who work in thriving cultures or those of privilege who also share these feelings. People like Dr Ashley Bloomfield who openly talks about his Imposter Experience despite being a middle aged white male in a government lead by a globally acclaimed leader.
I think if we lump the two together we risk throwing the baby out with the bath water. It’s like saying let’s stop giving free lunches at school because we need to solve child poverty – both are required and are a supporting mechanism whilst the larger task progresses.
We’re talking about 2 separate things here and one doesn’t mutually exclude the other. Imposter Experience won’t go away if we fix our systems. It doesn’t exist because of bad workplace culture. In fact, supporting people with Imposter Experience helps bridge the gap, to support people to exist in cultures that may still be a work in progress. So fix the culture yes but also support the Imposter Experience.
Workplace culture is an external environment. Imposter experience is an internal one. The one thing we have the biggest influence over as individuals is our internal environment, how we think and how we choose to show up. This isn’t to say there’s something wrong with us or it’s a problem we need to fix. It’s acknowledging a reality that exists in many high achievers and something that if left unchecked can halt our progress or lead us to dim our light.
Rather than the minority being ‘supported’ to fit in we need to gain the self-efficacy to feel comfortable standing out. To bring what is different about us knowing it’s a strength and a super power that sets us apart in a good way rather than making us different and feel like we need to be more like the norms we see around us. That’s why I’m passionate about the Imposter Experience work I do and after many years of running workshops, I’ve also seen the impact on thousands of people across multiple countries .
If we stop focusing on Imposter Experience and say it’s actually down to workplace culture we are left with a problem we’ve already been trying to fix for over a hundred years. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. In fact whilst we’re still trying to fix our broken systems, gain equality, stamp out discrimination we also need support with the realities that exist regardless of our cultures – like Imposter Experience. So do both.
If the lens we look through is clouded by self doubt it doesn’t matter about your organisations policies, quotas or women in leadership initiatives. You’ll not back yourself, you won’t apply for the promotion and you won’t feel like you’ve earned your place at the table. Navigating imposter experiences helps individuals do this and therefore improve cultures along the way.
I know from my Imposter Experience research that there’s a lot of power in having the conversation, normalising these feelings and giving them a label. Imposter Experience is about our self-efficacy, the way we view our capabilities. It’s not about fitting in or belonging, that’s different.
Imposter Experience is not bullying, discrimination, bias or toxic cultures – they exist on the external. My view is this isn’t about fixing people, it’s about supporting them to own their space. It’s helping people remove that lens of self-doubt to gain confidence in what they bring to the table.
What's the difference between being busy and productive?
It’s an interesting question because most of us have been conditioned to believe that the busier we are the more productive we’ll be. We live in a world that prioritises quantity over quality – more is always better. The more hours you work the more valued you are as an employee, the more successful you’ll be, the more you’ll earn. Until we burn out. Then we’re not productive or valuable to anyone!
Busyness is fashionable, we wear busy like a badge of honour. It means we’re needed, valuable and productive. This attachment to busy has become a marker of our self-worth and we cling to it.
Our societies attachment to busy means we no longer value the opposite of busy – we see down time as a waste of time. Do you feel selfish or guilty for taking time out for you? Even though it’s not just you that benefits from that time out. Imagine what a better partner, parent, worker, person you are when you’re not stressed out and tired?
It’s a concept I refer to as slowing down to speed up which I know sounds counter intuitive but bear with me! If we slow down, take time out, make time for self-care we find we become more effective and therefore speed up. Because tasks don’t take as long, decisions are easier to make and problems easier to solve, we can think clearly and we make less mistakes. This is the concept of slowing down that then enables us to speed up because we’re more effective.
It’s this difference between busy and productive and they don’t mean the same thing. In fact the busier you are the chances are the less effective you’re going to be.
We live in a world where we’ve been taught more is always better and a focus on quantity, that we should multi task, do more things in less time and that there’s never enough. It’s not a coincidence that burnout has become so prevalent.
However more is not necessarily better, especially where performance is concerned. We can work hard but only to a point. Without the necessary balance and down time the hard work starts to become ineffective. We hit a point at peak performance where further quantity starts to impact on the quality of what we produce. This is the time we’re more likely to make mistakes, less likely to innovate and less tolerant with those we’re working with. At this point more quantity starts to decrease performance until we eventually hit burnout.
That’s what I’ve charted below in this model. If we can do enough to hit peak performance without doing too much that we lose our effectiveness we’ve hit the sweet spot.
This is why I’m so passionate about teaching people how to slow down to speed up, the difference between busy and productive and how to perform at our peak. It leads to less overwhelm and burnout and ensures we are a sustainable resource.
Get in touch to talk about running this workshop for your business. Book a call here to chat further.
What kind of busy are you?
As I write my next book, Burnout to Brilliance I’m reflecting on the impacts of our busyness.
Busyness is fashionable, we wear busy like a badge of honour. It means we’re needed, valuable and productive. This attachment to busy has become a marker of our self-worth and we cling to it.
It’s this difference between busy and productive and they don’t mean the same thing. In fact the busier you are the chances are the less effective you’re going to be.
It’s why I’m passionate about teaching the concept of slowing down to speed up and the difference between busy and productive to help us perform at our peak and be our best without burning out in the process.
Today I'm exploring the different types of busy and what they lead to. Whilst busyness has been made fashionable it presents in different ways and therefore varying impacts.
At it’s best it’s a healthy busy that equates to performance but most often this is not the case. We’re too busy overdelivering, trying to prove ourselves because we lack confidence and fear we’re going to get found out. We have a pressure to know all the answers which keeps us busy chasing after perfect outcomes. Or we’re just the kind of busy that thrives on chaos, being needed and wanting to do it all so we can complain about the stress we’re under. This ends up in burnout and under productive performance but at its worst becomes overwhelm, avoidance, and procrastination. We can be so worried we’ll fail we don’t even try, or the pressure to know more stops us from making the smallest progress or making a start. Or we’ve got problems we’d rather avoid so busyness becomes a great distraction!
What type of busy are you? When we understand why we behave the way we do and what the resulting impact is it’s the first step to doing something about it. This is what I help people with on my programmes and workshops.
To find out more why not book a free no obligation call with me and let's chat about how I can help you go from burnout to brilliance.
Is Imposter Syndrome good for us?
This is an idea I’ve seen circulating recently often disguised as the positives that come with Imposter Syndrome. That maybe a little bit of self doubt is good for helping us sense check our ego, that it motivates us to perform and keep striving to get better. It’s often termed ‘balanced self doubt’.
Obviously we know that too much self doubt is detrimental, in the same way that too much stress is detrimental. We also know that a little bit of stress can be a motivating factor to achieve a deadline or help spur us into action. Is it the same with self-doubt though?
Adam Grant talks about it in his book, Think Again, that perhaps it’s a good thing that stops us getting complacent and makes us work harder. That doubting ourselves helps us sense check ideas and ask better questions.
The first thing to note is that a lot of this comes out of the US where there is perhaps more of a cultural requirement towards ego checking! What I mean by that is a culture that’s much better at backing themselves and less plagued by self-doubt. We live in quite a humble, modest society in Aotearoa, as a result I think we have more of an issue with self-doubt.
I also think we can achieve all of this without having to doubt our abilities or suffer from Imposterism - in fact it’s a must.
If we look at stress and self doubt on a continuum we know that the detrimental areas of each exist at both ends of the scale (too much and too little) and that what we’re aiming for is the middle ground, the happy medium.
Too little stress is boredom and too much is burnout - we need the middle ground. The true can be said of self doubt. But is Imposter Syndrome really the middle ground here - I don’t think it is and have outlined this continuum in more detail below to show you what I mean.
I don’t believe we can look at imposter syndrome as ‘balanced self doubt’. What we’re actually talking about here is balanced ego. It’s not about having more or less self-doubt it’s about aligning our confidence with our capabilities so that it reflects reality.
When we talk about balanced self-doubt what we’re talking about is someone who does not experience imposterism and has an alignment of their skills and capabilities.
This added humility means we ask the right questions, motivate ourselves to succeed and do all this without having to have ‘a healthy amount of self-doubt’. I think the healthiest view on this is where our skillset and confidence align (the middle ground).
It means we’re not undone by self doubt, we’re not suffering from imposter experience and we’ve also not gone too far the other way and let our ego get the better of us, either through Dunning Kruger (a cognitive bias where people greatly overestimate their competence despite limited competence in said domain) or worse!
So I don’t believe a little bit of imposter syndrome is healthy, I think managing it is healthy and when our belief in our capabilities matches reality what we find is we don’t have imposter syndrome. A healthy amount of self-doubt is actually humility, without self-doubt. Someone free of imposterism, who is self aware and can embrace both their strengths and weaknesses in line with reality and perform at their peak.
This is something I’ve invested years of my life training others and forms the subject of three books I’ve written, if you’re keen to find out more, head to the resources page of the website
4 ways I overcame imposter experience
It’s something I talk a lot about in my Imposter Experience trainings and workshops. I also love sharing stories with the group, as when we talk about this not only do we normalise it but it helps us learn from each others experience. There’s a great power in knowing this impacts other high achievers in similar ways.
My Imposterism always came about in my corporate career about my intellect as I got promoted up the ranks. I left school as early as I could and didn’t go to University. I wanted to get out into the real world, earn, travel and spread my wings. I’d sit around leadership tables next to those with multiple degrees and wonder if I belonged. “Who am I to question these people, what could I possibly have to add? I don’t even have a degree.”
It fed into my self doubt around my leadership role and what I brought to the table and would often result in me not asking questions or sharing ideas. When I left the corporate world it didn’t go away but changed. When I’d go on TV or release books ‘who are you to pose as an expert? What if they ask a question you don’t know the answer to? Who will read your book?’
Thankfully I learned the strategies to ensure these feelings of self-doubt when they arise don’t stop me doing it anyway. I’ve learned that it’s less about overcoming our imposter experience and more about learning to manage it. I often refer to it as a volume control not a switch that is either on or off and it comes and goes throughout our experiences often rearing its head when we’re out of our comfort zone.
Here are some of the top tips I use to offset my imposter experience, hopefully they help with yours too:
Own your super powers is an important message I’m often telling everyone else so it makes sense I also have to practice what I preach! This starts by knowing what we bring to the table and valuing it. Awareness of my strengths keeps me from beating myself up over my weaknesses.
Celebrating successes is not always something I’ve been good at or taken the time to do. Now it’s become part of my planning each week and month. Before I look forward I take a moment to look back. What’s gone well and why, what am I proud of? Sometimes I journal this, other times I simply reflect and bring these things to mind on a Friday afternoon as I wrap up the week. I also have an icon on my desktop that is a folder I store successes in. Feedback from clients, published articles or acclamation for my work. Each time I add to this I’m offsetting my negativity bias in my brain and also providing a place to go to on those off days – the evidence that I am as good as people think when my inner imposter is telling me otherwise.
I don’t have to know all the answers! As a human I will make mistakes and that’s ok, aslong as I learn from them and it helps improve me next time around. Infact that’s how I’ve learned most of the things I now put into practice to be successful and the result has been the same. My confidence has improved because I’ve proved myself competent, even by making mistakes and learning along the way. This confidence, competence loop is something I teach in my workshops.
Balance has been key too, when I find time for me to reflect, pause and gain the space to think I become more resilient and I also increase my awareness. This helps me notice and acknowledge more of the positives. Retraining my brain to notice more of the positives including my strengths and successes. This increased resilience also helps me feel more confident, bounce back from challenges and own my space.
It’s not as simple as doing this once though and being confident forever. It’s like training a muscle at the gym, it takes practice. Little and often is the key like building a muscle, we do the work until we’re strong even when we’re not at the gym, it doesn’t all happen in one personal training session!
There are many other strategies that I share in my workshops. What matters most is not whether we suffer from self-doubt as most of us do at some point, it’s whether we let it stop us. These strategies help us offset our imposter experience and succeed regardless.
Get free resources to help you overcome Imposter Experience here
The Introvert Advantage
It comes up often in our leadership chats as well as the diversity space. The difference between introverts and extroverts and which is actually better? Well despite what one thinks about the other it’s neither! It’s just different and each has it’s own pros and cons.
I’m an introvert so maybe slightly biased but over the years feeling like I should be more extroverted to be liked or promoted I’ve come to see this as a super power.
I used to think it was a weakness, I’m too reserved, I need to speak out more, I need to be the life and soul of the party to be liked. I need to be louder at work to be noticed. It was all very exhausting. I see this in others and on reflection I got noticed because of what I brought to the table, including my introvert advantage, so that’s what I enjoy helping others understand.
Let’s clear up a few misconceptions. In a nut shell introversion or extroversion comes down to how a person responds to stimulation, especially in social settings. Introverts tend to thrive in quiet situations, while extroverts crave the opposite, tending to thrive in crowds or with large amounts of stimulation.
Introverts aren’t shy and around the right people who they know well, or one on one can be very chatty, particulalrly if the conversation is meaningful. Sit me at a dinner table full of strangers or a networking event and I’ll need a day by myself to get over it! Our introvert nature doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy people or socialising, it just means we need time by ourselves to balance this afterwards.
I love being out connecting with people but I also know I need time to myself to refuel. I know I focus better in the quiet, without distractions and create better when I’m in my own head reflecting and considering. It’s why I never liked open plan offices and love working from home! It’s why many introverts have found they’ve thrived in lockdown.
Extroverts on the other hand get their energy from people, they like to think out loud and bounce ideas around with the group. After work they want a dinner party not the couch and a good book.
Of course all this exists on a sliding scale and some might have stronger tendancies in each direction than others. In reality most of us exist close to the middle of that scale as ambiverts with slight tendancies towards either side. It’s less about how we act because we can all do the things at both ends of this extreme but more about how we fill our cup, where we get our energy and what we need to be at our best.
Many women who come to me for coaching are introverts and will ask things like ‘how can i be more extroverted to get ahead in leadership’. My mantra is very much about leveraging the skills we have not trying to be like others or change our unique gifts. But is it true, do extroverts get ahead at work, are they heard more, do people notice them, are they favoured over introverts?
In a world that celebrates ego, noise and attention you’d think so, we’re conditioned to believe that we should be the centre of attention, outgoing is fashionable and attractive and calm and reserved is often considered boring!
Our world is designed for extroverts and we’re all over stimulated. This makes it harder for introverts and more important we understand what we need and what we can bring to the table. But if we’re trying to be more like extroverts or not allowing ourselves what we need we’re missing out on a super power and the world is missing out on our creativity and leadership.
I know many successful introverts, and i am one so I thought it time to share how this quiet, considered nature can actually be a superpower and therefore how to use it.
I first embraced being an introvert and realised this was a super power when I read Susan Cains amazing book Quiet. “Introverts have nervous systems that react more when there's stuff going on around us,” says Cain. “Could be people, but it could also be bright lights and noise and so on. That means that we're feeling at our most alive and in our sweet spot when things are a little bit quieter and more mellow.”
I’ve sat in many leadership meetings where extroverts have thought aloud, repeated what others have said in their owns words, mansplained (even when they’ve not been men) and shot from the hip and we’ve been no further forward in solving the problem. Until right at the end of the meeting when the introvert in the room who’s sat back listened, reflected and not spoken a word all meeting says one thing which adds more value than the previous hour of korero. Our style may mean we need time to consider and reflect but it also taps into an intellect and articulation that means it should be heard not get lost in the noise.
In her TED talk Cain references studies that suggest introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than extroverts do.
As introverts we listen better therefore understand more (this might explain the impact we have despite saying much less), we consider and reflect weighing up options, viewing risks and making well thought out choices. Obviously we have a duty to speak up and share our ideas but our organisations also need to make space for this to happen, facilitate the conversations to get the best out of both sets of people who sit around the table and invite space and process that appeals to both natures.
Recently I set up our entire home loan over email with a mortgage advisor I’ve never met or spoken to, it was great and I imagine he is also an introvert. I love retreats but prefer silent ones. Where I can avoid the group dinners and have an excuse to be by myself without feeling rude, guilty or aloof.
I suppose it’s also why I love to write books, although that’s lead to a speaking career I never imagined and actually enjoy! When we get what we need introverts thrive and contribute so much more, make a bigger impact and can ultimately change the world.
Give me notice, time to think and a quiet space and you’ll unleash my super powers!
So if you’re an introvert stop thinking you need to be more outgoing. Understand what you need to be at your best, get that solitude you need to recharge. It’s as important to your energy as a good nights sleep.
We all need a tug boat
It’s been a bit stormy in Wellington of late. It’s normal I guess for winter. I was up on the hill recently overlooking the ocean (warm and inside I might add). As the swell whipped around the harbour and the rain and wind blasted the window I watched a container ship coming into port.
These things are massive and sail from the other side of the world in the open ocean withstanding conditions I can only imagine. Yet when they get to port they need to wait for these tiny little tug boats to go out and guide them in.
It made me think of an analogy with us and our life. Sometimes the swell is heavy, sometimes the storms are set it. Whilst, like the container ships we’re all capable of withstanding the weather, sometimes we need a tug boat to bring us home. Sometimes we encounter those tricky patches we’re maybe not used to or haven’t navigated before and we need support. Like the little tug boats that come out to guide us home. This can be in the form of people, learnings, knowledge or reflection. It can also be the things we do – yoga and meditation have so often been my tug boats guiding me safely to port.
So who or what is your tug boat in the storm is the question I’m thinking today. As well as drawing from this analogy that it’s often the small things in life that really make a big difference – like the tug boats. Even the big strong container ships need support and navigation, so do we.
The pitfalls of perfect
As a recovering perfectionist I always wanted to overdeliver, in everything I did. I remember getting off stage in the early days of my public speaking career and the first thing I’d do, before the applause had even finished was go through my notes and highlight all the bits I’d missed or got wrong. Even though the audience had loved it, even though no-one knew what was on my script I still expected to deliver each keynote perfectly and beat myself up if I didn’t.
Over the years I’ve learned that done is better than perfect and to not let perfection get in the way of great work. This has helped me achieve more and also stopped me burning myself out! It’s not that I’ve lowered the bar on my standards, I’ve just reset it to a realistic level.
For me, perfectionism was driven by my fear of failure which is ironic as so often it set me up to fail by taking on too much, aiming for something that wasn’t achievable. I was always trying to overdeliver and go above and beyond to prove myself. I now realise this was down to my own self-doubt and fear of being found out. The only person I needed to prove something to was my inner critic and for most of us the person in the room with the highest expectation of you, will be you. So how do you know if you’re a perfectionist?
You’re working hard but still feel like it’s not enough, you have excessively high expectations and beat yourself up for not meeting them, you struggle to delegate or ask for help, you feel overwhelmed, you worry you’ll get found out and that you’re not good enough. You think if it’s not perfect you’re failing. You feel alone and that there is something wrong with you!
We all have our strengths and weaknesses and I remember Jackie Clark of The Aunties saying ‘own your shit, own your shine’ which sums this up perfectly. We so often focus on eliminating our weaknesses whilst at the same time playing down or ignoring completely the things that make us great.
We hold perfection up as the standard we must achieve and then we beat ourselves up for not attaining it. We feel like we’re falling short as much of what we aim for isn’t possible. Whether it’s trying to look like the airbrushed photo of a magazine or wishing our life looked more like someone’s social media high lights reel – we’re aspiring to an impossible standard that’s not real. We’re setting ourselves up to fail.
I tell you what is real – imperfection! Imperfection is human and it can still be pretty amazing. We will make mistakes but we’re also capable of brilliance – just not all the time!
I love the way the Japanese refer to perfection. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. Wabi-sabi is a concept I wrote about in the Superwoman Survival Guide and is centered on the acceptance of imperfection. Appreciating beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature.
Imperfection is our true nature and it is beautiful. When we appear perfect we are less genuine and authentic. Dame Jenny Shipley once told me ‘the closer you are to perfect the less people will trust you’ and this makes so much sense.
Perfection is imperfect, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. It’s not surprising this is linked to overwhelm and burnout when we hold ourselves to these excessively high standards. Sometimes done is better than perfect yet we’re conditioned to always want to achieve more or better – it’s no wonder we feel like we’re falling short!
So what can we do about it and how can remind our inner perfectionist to rein itself in?
I never cashed my first royalty cheque
This is my first royalty cheque. I kept it because it cost more to cash than it was worth. It’s less than $5US. My first book was a flop but did this mean I was a flop as an author? Well four books later it turns out it was just that I had a lot to learn. The last four years have been a big learning curve and as I reflect on the success of book four I’m grateful to have been able to put all those lessons into practice.
So often we see failure as the end of the road, proof we’re not good enough so we stop trying. In reality we’re never going to be good at something we’ve never done when we try it for the first time, unless it’s a lucky fluke! We have to learn, to practice and often a long that route we’ll fail. That’s often how we learn our biggest lessons so why do we see it as a negative and proof we’re not good enough.
We fear failure and so often see it as a negative yet in reality it’s how we learn. It’s often a stepping stone to success and therefore a positive we should embrace on our journey of growth and development. Some organisations are now encouraging more risk taking and being open to failing because they’ve figured out it’s how we become more innovative and explore ideas and push the boundaries of what’s possible – if we’re not fearing failure but rather learning from mistakes to continuously improve.
It’s an approach I’m a massive fan of and have seen work for myself and my own business. But it’s a work in progress too. It’s not like flicking a switch and requires us to undo years of conditioning encouraging us to avoid failure and that it’s a negative, proof we’re not good enough.
It’s something I refer to as the competence confidence loop. When we try something new for the first time and get out of our comfort zone, like a new job or challenge it’s where we can fear failure the most. But as time goes on and we learn and grow in the role and overcome the challenge the feeling lessens. It’s normal to feel uncomfortable when we get out of our comfort zone, to worry about failing or not being as good as people think. But when we try and succeed we collect evidence of our competence and this in turn boosts our confidence. This of course may include some rerouting around our mistakes along the way as we learn to succeed!
When we get out of our comfort zone one of two things will happen. Either we’ll succeed (and enter that competence confidence loop) or we’ll fail – and learn something that helps us succeed next time around (with the same impact on our competence confidence loop). Too often we think that failure is a negative, that it’s proof our imposter syndrome is right but it’s often part of the competence confidence loop, the longer way around to the same destination.
I teach more about relating to fear and failure and the confidence competence loop in my workshops which are available for your business or team now. Or why not book yourself into this years public one day workshop in Wellington on 25 May.
Why Imposter Syndrome might be responsible for your burnout
Imposter Syndrome, or Imposter Experience as I prefer to call it is a field I’ve worked in for many years now, leading to the tag Imposter Expert. I’m still blown away by the number of successful, high performing people who admit to sharing these feelings of self doubt that they rarely share with others. Worried it’s a sign of weakness that further evidences this feeling of not being good enough. In fact many people on my workshops will confess when they share with colleagues they’re doing this training they get the response “really, you get that? I never would have thought, you’re so confident and good at what you do”. It’s a familiar issue and here’s why.
Imposter Experience is the domain of high achievers so the reality (and what others see) is we perform well at what we do. However, privately on the inside we doubt this. We doubt our abilities, we worry we’re going to get found out and feel like we’re faking it till we make it. It’s why we worry one day we’ll get found out and often assume that people have got it wrong. We tell ourselves our success is not real, it’s actually down to my amazing team, luck or some kind of mistake. Or we justify it by saying, I just work harder than everyone else and here in lies the problem. This last bit is probably true! If we’re desperate not to get ‘found out’ of course we’ll work twice as hard as we need to, to try and prove ourselves and prove the imposter wrong.
It’s these feelings of self-doubt that push us to work twice as hard to not get ‘found out’. This combined with the fact we’re high achievers normally means we’ll be invited to more meetings, asked to sit on more projects and be given more work because of our capability. Yet the inner imposter will tell us, you must prove you can do this and get it perfect, you must also not ask for help – people will think you can’t cope or you’re not as good as they thought!
Can you see how these beliefs shape our path towards burnout? I often talk about our imposter experience being a lens that we look through, a lens that is clouded by self-doubt and obscures reality. It’s also what drives us to overwork, try twice as hard, aim for perfection, not say no or be reluctant to delegate or ask for support. Sadly this is a perfect recipe for burnout and one I believe is driven by our beliefs that stem from our Imposter Experience and this fear of not being good enough that keeps us pushing.
It’s the reason why burnout is so prevalent in high achievers and given 70% of us suffer from imposter experience (according to the international journal of behavioural science) that’s a lot of us. The irony of course is that we don’t need to prove ourselves to anyone other than our own inner critic. Often the only person doubting us is ourselves!
It’s why I’m so passionate about teaching people the tools required to remove this lens of self-doubt, the over come imposter syndrome and recognise our achievements and capability. When we silence this imposter experience and our inner critic we also find we’re less likely to burnout, less stressed and anxious and can perform at our peak. If this resonates with you and you’d like to learn tools to overcome your imposter experience and prevent burnout, come along to one of our forthcoming workshops or events.
Chasing Rainbows: the power of authenticity
Every time we celebrate pride I’m encouraged to reflect on my own journey and the fortune I have to be around supportive people and in a (generally) tolerant country. But long after I came out I still felt uncomfortable talking about it publicly or referring to myself as gay and it isn’t always safe. After seeing so many rainbows around of late I felt proud and inclined to write about my journey to this point.
You see, sometimes it’s hard to be proud of who you are when society has been asking you to be something different all your life. Even the inadvertent family ads featuring a husband and wife, and the assumptions of ‘he’ when you talk about your partner – it doesn’t have to be explicit to be continuously reinforced.
I’d always wanted to please people, I wanted to make my parents proud and achieve the approval of anyone and everyone; my family, friends, partners, bosses, teachers. I would change myself and my desires and sometimes even my opinions to fit into whatever mould was required at the time.
I spent years following the norms, trying to fit in and trying to be who I thought I should, trying to fit the mould. Dating men and wondering why it didn’t work, settling down with a male partner and wondering why I was unhappy.
Interviewers often ask me “what was it like living a lie when you knew deep down that you were gay?” It wasn’t that I was consciously living a lie but had something buried so deep within I wasn’t even aware it existed. It wasn’t a case of choosing not to share it because I didn’t know there was a choice or, for many years, that I had something to share.
For many years it was buried so deep it didn’t even exist, I was so unaware, but I still couldn’t figure out why relationships with men didn’t work. But even as I started to gain some self-awareness and begin to put the pieces together of who I was and what I wanted feeling this and actually accepting it were two completely different things.
I’m from a small rural, conservative English town. There weren’t many gays at school and those who were got bullied. My family are from a traditional Christian background where homosexuality was not acceptable and women were expected to grow up, marry men and have a family. I was so worried that, not only would my family be disappointed but, they would love me less. I was worried that my colleagues may treat me differently, my friends would disown me and that those around me would disapprove. I struggled to come to terms with who I was as it didn’t fit the version I’d been sold of who I should be.
It was tough, one of the toughest things I’ve done (that’s why it took me 10 years) but in hindsight not a tough as living a lie would have been for another 10 years. Once I knew of course I had to do something about it, I had to be true to my authenticity now I’d discovered it - but that’s easier said than done!
The ironic thing of course is that no-one did really mind and some weren’t even surprised. Apparently the only person I’d been keeping it a secret from was myself! When I look back now and wonder why it took me so long I can see it was fear of judgement, disappointing people, feeling like an outcast. All these things keep me hanging out in the closest hoping it would go away and I’d be ‘normal’ until it becomes unbearable enough that I had to break out only to find that no-one really minds, in fact they all kind of knew already. It’s taught me that everyone’s scared of something, we all have to face fears and build our courage what ever it is we’re facing.
I feel comfortable in my own skin, I’m no longer living a lie. I know who I am and can share this with those I care about at last. I no longer feel the need to accommodate others and have realised the people who love you will accept you just the way you are. I love myself and know that people love me, for who I am not who I’m pretending to be.
If we do not live a life true to ourselves and feel as though we have meaning and purpose we’ll never be happy. In fact the suppression will lead to an unhappiness that can impact on our health. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, suppression of our true self is damaging but it’s just as hard sometimes to allow it to shine through. Especially if it’s different to the expectations society has placed on you.
I remember reading Brene Brown’s Gifts of Imperfection before I came out and this excerpt really stood out. “I think we should be born with a warning label similar to the ones that come on cigarette packages: Caution: If you trade in your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”
These days I’m lucky to have a partner and friends who make me feel like I fit in the world just as everyone else does and that I can be accepted just as I am, but most importantly I feel like i fit in my own skin at last. I’m also fortunate to live in a place like Wellington where people rarely bat an eyelid when I refer to my partner using the pronoun ‘she’. This is how it should be yet I’m aware so often isn’t.
I know there are others who have a very different experience of this and still live in places where the acceptance and freedom is a distant dream and the discrimination and sometimes risk of life a daily reality. I know we’ve not all had smooth journeys towards coming out and that hate and violence still exists in all corners of the world, so I consider myself very lucky and my heart goes out to those who are not as fortunate.
Why is Imposter Syndrome prevalent in women and 5 ways to overcome it
According to the International Journal of Behavioral Science 70% of us think we’re not as good as others believe we are, it’s called Imposter Syndrome. It’s exacerbated by our fear of failure, trying to please everyone around us, striving for perfection but worried we’re falling short all rolled into one! It’s particularly prevalent in women and high achievers and is often the underlying reason we’re driven to over achieve – to ensure we’re not found out and to prove to ourselves we’re capable!
Imposter syndrome is a concept describing high-achieving individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a “fraud.” It’s that voice of self-doubt that, despite our successes, keeps us feeling like we might fail, we might not be good enough, and we might get found out.
Those with imposter syndrome have a tendency to attribute their success to external factors—like luck, or the work of the team. It takes courage to take on challenges and pursue dreams that leave you open to the risk of failure, falling short, losing face, and being “found out.”
Research has found this to be particularly prevalent in minority groups. For women, especially in business or around leadership tables it makes sense that we may feel like an imposter in an environment for centuries we were told we didn’t belong in. Our heritage and cultural norms around this evolution of our place in the workforce (particularly in authority) means we’ve have this societal hangover and need to prove our worth, earn our seat and show hundreds of years of gender inequality that we are not indeed frauds and more capable than we’ve been lead to believe.
So yes men do suffer from imposter syndrome but when we look at any minority or under represented group of course we’re going to again be at a disadvantage in this space given we’ve been made to feel like actual imposters in positions of power and have centuries to undo in terms of proving ourselves.
Makes sense right? But regardless of what contributes to us feeling this way, what do we do about it?
It’s not something that we overcome rather we navigate it as it appears in our life. It may always be there but have varying degrees of impact on us given how loud we turn the volume up. It can be different at various times of our life or different areas of our life. For some it surfaces at work, for others it’s in relationships. It can be dormant for years and rear its head when we start a new job, get a promotion or return to the workforce after having children. Check below and see if this sounds familiar?
o I find it hard to accept praise
o I tend to focus on the things I’m not good at rather than my strengths
o I think people over rate me and worry one day they’ll find out I’m not as good as they think I am
o I often succeed despite being convinced I’ll fail before I begin.
o I think those around me are better
o I hate asking for feedback on my performance
Generally the more of those that apply, the more likely Imposter Syndrome is to be at play and therefore impacting you. It’s not uncommon for people to experience more than one of the above statements during bouts of imposter syndrome.
It can feel like we’re the only ones experiencing this as it’s not much talked about, particularly in the workplace, we therefore assume it’s a character flaw in us and a weakness we must overcome – further evidencing these feelings of Imposterism.
However, we’re not alone, many people experience Imposter syndrome, especially high achievers and even those we look up to and aspire to be.
It can lead to us playing it safe to avoid failure and having to work twice as hard to prove ourselves wrong and not get ‘found out’. Perfectionism can often be driven from a place of Imposterism and it can impact our brand and credibility if we’re constantly downplaying our achievements and not owning our successes.
Sadly, it’s not something we can easily overcome—but we can learn to navigate it and succeed anyway. Here’s how:
1. Own your successes.
We tend to be modest when it comes to our achievements, and have been brought up not to boast about our strengths. We feel uncomfortable accepting praise and our negativity bias in our brain means we’re wired not to think of the positives so much.
The most important thing to remember is that if we’re getting praise or positive feedback, it’s because we’ve earned it and deserve it. Own it and let it help counter some of those moments of self-doubt.
2. Give it your all and know it’s enough.
Sometimes our imposter syndrome is due to our fear of failure and our perfectionism manifesting all at once to give us this fear of not being good enough. We fail to meet our own unrealistic ideals of perfection—either in the way we look, our abilities in life, or our achievements at work. Perfectionism so often sets us up to fail and feeds these feelings of self-doubt.
Overcoming imposter syndrome requires self-acceptance: you don’t have to attain perfection to be worthy of the success you’ve achieved. It’s not about lowering the bar, it’s about resetting it to a realistic level. You don’t have to be Einstein to be a valuable asset. Nor do you have to attain perfection to share something with the world.
3. Don’t let your doubt and fear stop you.
We need to continue to take risks and challenges even though we might not think we’re ready. Too often, we stand back and let the opportunities pass us by because we doubt our abilities. The best way to see if you’re ready is to dive in and take on the challenge!
There will always be a feeling of fear and the risk of failure—we grow and develop by facing these fears and getting outside of our comfort zone. Don’t let your worries hold you back.
One of the ways we can navigate these feelings is by proving we’re capable, this capability brings with it confidence and less power in self-doubt, increasing our comfort zone and our confidence by proving we have the competence and capability.
4. Remember: your thoughts are not common knowledge.
I know how it feels to be gripped by imposter syndrome—we spend all our energy trying to prove our worth to everyone else to make it go away. The funny thing is, only we believe that we’re not capable. For example, we wouldn’t have been offered the job if people didn’t think we were capable. Often the only person we need to prove anything to is ourselves.
5. Acknowledge it and know it’s not just you.
We need to be mindful that the voice in our head is often swayed. We are wired to see the glass as half empty, to focus on the negative. This comes from evolutionary times when it was helpful for us to scan the horizon for the worst that could happen in order to survive.
What this can translate to in our modern world is a constant focus on what we’re not good at, things that went wrong, and why we’re not enough—in our jobs, how we look compared to our friends, who we are as a person, or what we’ve achieved in life.
To counter this negativity bias, we need to focus on what we have, not what we haven’t, to direct our energy toward the things we’re good at rather than on what might go wrong and where we might fail.
We are all capable of more than we know, and we can do amazing things if we’re not busy doubting our abilities. Next time that negative voice in your head starts to speak, turn down the volume.
What matters most is not whether we fear failing, looking foolish, or not being enough; it’s whether we give those fears the power to keep us from taking the actions needed to achieve our goals.
Join my live 4 week online course and work with me to overcome your imposter syndrome and learn more practical tools and strategies to build your confidence
Owning your superpowers in a tall poppy culture
Because we’re good at something, we tend to think everyone else must be good at it too – so we don’t value it, we don’t think it’s anything special. It’s why we struggle to answer the question ‘What are your strengths?’.
If it’s effortless and easy (as strengths generally are), we don’t think it’s worthy of a mention. This combined with our concerns about boasting, not being modest or being seen as a tall poppy is a perfect storm for undervaluing our strengths.
We’re very good at focusing on our weaknesses; it’s why our strengths don’t come to mind so easily – we don’t think about them, we’re not aware of them and then we feel guilty/immodest for having them.
We’re also very quick to move on to the next thing in our modern world so don’t spend time reflecting on the positive, what went well, why, what strengths we used. Whether it’s our culture, our imposter syndrome or our negativity bias the result is the same – we don’t know what we’re good at and overlook the very skills that are in fact our super powers.
Culturally we tend to err on the side of modesty to a point of self deprecation and believe that by having strengths we are in some way arrogant or boastful. We blur the lines between quiet confidence and arrogance. Humility and Egotism. Having strengths doesn’t make us conceited, it makes us successful and we can still do this in a modest, unassuming, unpretentiousness manner.
It’s about owning our super powers but first we need to know what they are and feel comfortable having any – this is what my talk is about and follows the research and training developed following the launch of my third book in Wellington, The Superwoman Survival Guide.
Research has proven focusing on our strengths makes us more successful, but first we have to know what they are. Global performance management company Gallup has surveyed more than 17 million people worldwide and has found if we focus on our strengths, we’ll be six times more likely to be engaged at work, 8% more productive and three times more likely to have an excellent quality of life.
Once we know what our strengths are we can train the brain to notice more of our successes, but we have to own it. This can be the toughest part, because we’ve been taught to be modest, to not boast about our achievements or fear being seen as a tall poppy.
Since the launch of my last 2 books I’ve become known as an Imposter Syndrome expert and teach this topic across communities and businesses in NZ. Owning our strengths is something that constantly comes up in offsetting our Imposter Syndrome.
Most of us feel uncomfortable accepting praise, and the negativity bias in our brain means we’re wired not to think of the positives so much – this combined with our modest culture and upbringing of course! We are predisposed to focus on the things we’re not good at rather than the things we are. We also emphasise this by spending a lifetime dwelling on this stuff and searching out evidence to prove ourselves right: we’re not as good as people think, and there are some fatal flaws within us that mean we’re not worthy and probably won’t succeed.
Our brains are predisposed to think more negatively. It’s how we’ve evolved and used to keep us safe. If we’re constantly scanning the horizon for the worst that can happen, we are able to react and prepare for that, which helped us survive back in the days of sabretooth tigers. However, in our modern life, this translates to noticing all the things we don’t like about ourselves, the things we’ve not got yet and what’s not gone well for us at work.
If I ask you to think of one negative thing that’s happened this week, it’ll probably come quite easy. Something that didn’t go well, someone who upset you? You’ll have probably been thinking about it for days since it happened and ruminating on it at night. Now, if I ask you the same question about something positive, it’s harder to recall; even if the positives outweigh the negatives for you this week, it’s the negatives we remember and reflect on.
Life has evolved at an amazing pace, and we’ve not caught up. Dr Barbara Fredrickson did a research study on positivity ratios and found to offset this bias that exists in the brain, we need a ratio of 3:1. That’s three positive thoughts, emotions or experiences to every one negative.
There’s a lot of work to be done in this space, as our negativity bias is like a well-worn walking track; we use it often so it’s smooth and easy to navigate. To even this out, we need to start firing more of the positive neural pathways and breaking down a less-travelled path in the brain, an overgrown track – you know those huts you find up in the mountains that have only been slept in once this year and are covered in moss? It’s like that and the chances are the track is more difficult to navigate, overgrown and steep.
So how can we counter this negativity bias and help train our brains to be a more positive place to be. It takes time, like training a muscle. We don’t go into the gym and pick up the heaviest weight, and this is similar. It’s not an overnight thing; we start small and build up – it takes practice.
The more we fire those positive neural pathways the more we’ll even out the bias and a more even positive distribution of thoughts will become our default state. It’s not that life changes but the lens we view it with does. We start to see the positives as well as the negatives.
It comes up often in my Imposter Syndrome courses. If we’re asking ourselves if we’re as good as people think or course a negative brain will only see evidence of why this is not true – further evidencing these feelings of not being good enough. However if we even out this bias to be a better reflection of reality that next time we ask ourselves that question we’ll see the answers have more evidence stacked in the positive corner to evidence what people are telling us – we are as good as they think!
One of the tools I love using for this (and still use today) is keeping a success diary.
This is my favorite strategy and started because I had a poor memory and wanted to prepare better for my annual performance reviews. By writing down the successes throughout the year, I got a lift each time I reflected on them. It provided evidence to offset my negativity bias and a place I could go to each time I doubted myself. These days, it’s an icon on my desktop because I’ve advanced technologically over the years, but choose what works for you. An inbox folder, a desktop icon and old fashion pen and paper journal or even a corkboard in your office with achievements and feedback from customers/clients attached.
Every time we add to this we’re walking down those overgrown tramping tracks and helping our brain retrain to see more of the positive. The negative will still be there sure but the voice won’t be as loud because we’ve been able to see a more even distribution of reality that includes some positives too.
It was Jackie Clark of family violence charity The Aunties I first heard use this phrase, and it sums it up beautifully: ‘Own your shit, own your shine.’ This is what standing in your power is all about.
Yes, we all make mistakes, have weaknesses and may have done things in our past differently if we got the chance, but rather than beating yourself up about these regrets, own them and know they help shape who you are today.
The next time someone is giving you praise or recognition, know you’ve earned it – we don’t give that stuff out for free. Own it! If all you can say is thank you because anything more feels like boasting, then start there. And know that owning your shine is not being immodest; it’s standing in your power and owning your super powers, and it inspires others. It also makes you more shiny.
Life lessons from my time with Buddhists
It’s just over a year since the passing of my teacher, friend and Buddhist nun Kelsang Gen Demo. For a decade she not only taught me how to meditate but many more valuable life lessons. This was further cemented in my mind whilst spending time in France at Thích Nhất Hạnhs Plum Village, visiting Bhutan, the kingdom famous for gross national happiness in place of GDP and teaching English to Buddhist monks in northern Thailand.
I’ve never been religious but I am a life long learner and believe we can learn so much from others. I’m curious and open and I remember Demo telling me on one of my first classes. Take what works for you and the bits that don’t resonate just leave them to one side.
There’s so much we can learn from ancient traditions that translates into our modern lives and these lessons have been the cornerstone of me living a healthy, happy life so I thought this was a perfect time to share a few.
Equanimity – A calm mind. One of my biggest aha moments came when I learned how important our minds are and how we can train them. I’d spent many years on diets, gym classes and pursuing physical health goals but I’d never considered to do the same for my mind. Yet it’s so important. Everything starts in the mind. What we think becomes how we feel and that becomes how we act. If we have an unpeaceful mind we will have an unpeaceful life it’s that simple. You know when you get out of bed on the wrong side and everything and everyone irritates you – that’s the mind doing that! If our minds are busy, stressed and tired of course life is going to be harder. Stilling the mind has been without doubt the biggest change in my life.
In a world when I was encouraged to multitask, the busier I was the more successful I’d become and sleep was for the weak this is a full 360 in terms of my beliefs! I used to think that down time was a waste of time and pressed myself to be doing something ’productive’ with every second of the day. I now know that being productive also means resting, stilling the mind and taking a break. Pressing pause in our busy days is as important as anything else on our to do list because it makes us more effective, it’s critical in helping us to everything else that’s on that to do list.
So check in on your mind? How busy is it, are the thoughts positive or negative? What impact is it having on your life. A great analogy Demo taught me was imagine a megaphone above your head playing your thoughts out loud as you went about your day – you probably wouldn’t have a job by the end of it, fewer friends and maybe a strained marriage! Given we know the impact of our thoughts on our mental health we should be more mindful of what thoughts we’re allowing to occupy space in our brain.
Sitting still for 10 minutes a day focusing on my breathing is my number one wellness tool. It calms my mind, helps me think more clearly, makes me more productive and creative and I’ve become so much more self-aware. It helps open up space between my thoughts, feelings and reactions. Do I still have a busy brain, god yes. Do I still have negative thoughts – of course I’m human. The difference is that now I notice them and have small pauses to chose to respond rather than react. My meditation practice helps me calm these thoughts and allow them to pass through rather than becoming attached or carried away by them.
Being able to focus on the breath and watch the mind also helps us be more present and that leads to our next lesson. Happiness is now! So often we’re worrying about the past or planning for the future that we are not in the present. We miss life because our minds are always somewhere else. The happiest people are those that are present and when we focus on the now it stops us worrying about the future or regretting the past – a source of our anxiety and overwhelm so often. Happiness is not in some far off place we dream off – when the kids have left home, when I retire or when I win lotto. It’s now, we just have to learn to be with it. We wait all week for the weekend, all year for summer and all life for happiness if we’re not careful.
This training of my mind has also allowed me to gain so much Perspective – I’ve learned that its not what happens to us but how we react to it and that we have a choice. This has been instrumental in changing the way I react to challenges. So much of what happens we can’t control and this can leave us feeling helpless like victims. When we focus on what we can control we become empowered and this is where we get to chose. The analogy Demo used I refer to now as the second arrow. If you get shot in the arm by an arrow it hurts, you’ve got a problem and it probably wasn’t your fault. Your reaction though is often like being shot in the arm by a second arrow in the same place, now you’ve got two problems, double the pain. The difference is you shot that second arrow yourself. You’ve got in the car to go to work, you’re running late and it won’t start (that’s your first arrow, it’s a problem that’s causing you to suffer). You can chose to get angry, kick the tyres and complain about being late. Or you can ring the road side assist and postpone your first meeting or check when the next bus leaves (this is your second arrow and this is where the choice comes in).
Of course sometimes the first arrow is so big and the pain so great there’s not much we can do about it and this is when we come to our next lesson Acceptance.
As humans we spend so much time trying to avoid suffering and chase after the good feelings. We want life to be good all the time and are uncomfortable sitting with sadness and suffering. It’s why addiction is so prevalent, we attempt to numb the suffering and replace it with a ‘high’ whether that’s from food, drugs, alcohol, shopping or something else.
We chase after the highs in our life (the perfect job, house, partner) and then when we get it we cling on to it and hope it never leaves. Likewise when we feel sad we desperately want it to pass and to feel happy again. Whoever we are there will be a mixture of good and bad in our life. We all have challenges, the good news is they don’t last. These feelings we want to avoid don’t last – but nor do the good ones. Everything comes and goes, this is the nature of life.
“if we have a problem there’s always two options either 1) there’s a solution in which case great, there’s no need to worry about it. Or 2) there’s not a solution, in which case there’s no point worrying about it.”
This valuable lesson taught me that suffering is inevitable, misery is not. If we can accept the things we can’t change it allows us to make peace and move on. Good and bad will always come and go, sit with what is and accept what we can’t change.
This segways nicely to another important lesson Impermanence. Everything will come and go whether we like it or not. None of us will live forever, everything we have we can lose. It’s why attachment in Buddhist teaching is the root of suffering.
You see one thing we all know for sure is that we will die, there’s no greater certainty, yet we live like we’ll live forever and it’s an utter surprise to us when we lose someone we love, we’re completely unprepared.
Demo likened it to staying in a posh hotel. We know we’re only there for short time, we make the most of the fine white sheets, the fluffy bath robe and free shampoos. We enjoy it, appreciate it but we don’t believe we’ll take any of it with us or cry when we leave because we knew right from the start that we’d be checking out.
It doesn’t diminish the pain this kind of suffering causes though and that brings me to my next point.
Suffering is hard, even if we can accept it. We don’t like to suffer, but it can also be where our biggest lessons come from. During my time at plum village Thích Nhất Hạnh’s place in France I read his famous book ‘No mud no lotus’ In fact I now have a lotus tattooed on my foot as a result of this very important lesson. The lotus is a beautiful flower that grows from the mud. We too grow from our challenges to bloom into the beautiful humans we are. It’s because of the mud that we become a lotus and without the mud we wouldn’t bloom. Suffering is part of the human condition and it’s ok not to be ok. If we get sick or lose someone we love of course we’ll suffer but sitting in the mud is often how we get through those times and over time the lotus starts to bloom. So often it’s our deepest scars that can lead to our biggest gifts.
Dharma is a Buddhist term for purpose, your gift to the world, your work. It’s how we serve. For many of us in the western world work is now all about money and we’ve lost tough with our sense of purpose that we get from the work we do. It gives us a reason to get out of bed in the morning and that feeling of making a difference in the world. It’s usually related to helping others too because as Buddhist’s tell us “all the happiness there is in the world arises from wishing others to be happy” kindness and compassion makes us feel good and have been under rated for too long in our survival of the fitness, me first mentality. But back to purpose. This was a big learning for me and resulted in me walking away from my corporate job, six figure income, company car, and ‘successful’ career. It shifted my thoughts from money and status (that did not bring me joy) to how I could use my skills to make a positive impact around me. I realised it’s not what you do but why you do it, your gift and how it impacts the world. This is now my dharma, writing books and delivering talks and coaching to help people be their best and align to their purpose. Of course this still earns me money and quite frankly it needs to otherwise I’m not able to do this work if I can’t afford my food and bills that power this work.
Simplicity This was a revelation to me as a corporate high flyer always wanting more, buying my way to happiness, hung up on ego and status. None of this made me happy and yet when I lost it all (voluntarily) I’d never been happier. It was a feeling of freedom, an opportunity to rediscover what matters. It taught me to love what I have rather than constantly chase after more. We tend to think in our modern world that more is better and this pursuit is like a bottomless bucket, a constant craving because of course there’s always more to have/do. We think that to be happy we have to have things when in fact the opposite is true. Having less has shown me the path to enjoying more.
The more we have, the harder we have to work to pay for it and the more worry we have over losing it! Life is more simple these days and I’m much happier as a result. It’s not about getting what you want but loving what you have and knowing that in the developed world most of us already have everything we need.
At some point in our lives we are forced to reduce the amount we have, whether it’s financial reasons, divorce, sickness, natural disaster or eventually death. Guess what we won’t take with us when the inevitable happens, everything. Having less stuff does not mean less quality of life and this is clear to me now. It opens more space in our life for the fun stuff, the things that really matter, there’s less to clean, insure and pack each time you move. Spending time living the simple life I realised how little we actually do need and by not having it, how much more room we have for things in our life that really matter.
The self-improvement myth
“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” Brene Brown
Whatever you call it; personal development, self-help, self-improvement, it’s a massive business and a billion dollar industry.
Whether we’re focusing on career progression, physical health and appearance, mental resilience or simply being the best we can be in daily life the same point is implied – that we are not already enough as we are, that we need to be different in some way.
I’m a massive fan of personal development and I’m part of the industry I mentioned above but I don’t buy into the self-improvement theory. I don’t believe we should all feel the pressure to change or be something we’re not and I don’t believe we’re falling short in the way that so many of us feel.
You see I think self-improvement is all about being the best version of you, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly – it’s always going to happen, it’s its destiny but it takes time, some are quicker than others and some butterflies are more beautiful than others, some have missing bits or imperfections but that’s what makes us unique and it’s about uncovering that beauty not trying to change it or wishing we were something or someone else.
I’m different now to who I was then but underneath it’s all the same – it’s all me.
The difference is I used to be confused about who I was and what I wanted, I was too busy trying to fit the mould to figure out who I was and what I wanted and I lacked the confidence to believe there was another way. I’d never heard of values, I certainly didn’t know I had them inside and authenticity filled me with fear because I desperately wanted to fit in.
I went on a journey of self-discovery, I travelled the world in search of answers, I walked away from a corporate career and rebuilt a life around my dreams. I figured out what my values were and how to live with meaning and purpose and I became more aware of who I was and what I wanted.
This gave me the confidence to start my own business, write a book and leave a relationship of seven years with a man because I was gay.
It’s a slow journey, one that takes time, one in which we learn from our mistakes and our experiences and each day we grow stronger and more beautiful like the butterfly. But it doesn’t stop there, I don’t think there’s ever a day that we’ve made it and all our dreams come true.
We continue to grow, learn and develop whether we’re 21 or 71.
It’s not about changing who we fundamentally are – about improving ourselves or being different but uncovering our true potential, growing into the person we’re capable of being and embracing that greatness that has been there all along buried deep within us – that’s development, that’s being awesome and it’s something we’re born with.
Much of the time we’re worried we should be better than we are or that we’re not as good as someone else. We worry about what others think when they judge us or why we’re not measuring up to others we are judging. We’re all worried about what people think of us yet the irony is no one is thinking half the things about you that you dread, do you know why? Because they’re all too busy worrying about what other people think of them.
Unfortunately there will always be someone more beautiful, clever, talented or stronger than you. But the reverse is also true: there will always be people less than you in all of these areas.
So instead of comparing yourself to others, look to see if you’re fulfilling your own potential and celebrate the things you already have.
We are inclined to think more negatively, especially where our flaws are concerned and we’re designed to notice this above the positives. We spend more time focusing on our weaknesses than our strengths.
Everyone has weaknesses and no matter how hard we try we’re never likely to be great at this but if we focus on our natural skills and abilities – this is what helps us grown and be successful and the things others admire in us.
We often view our weaknesses as fatal flaws which need addressing yet everyone has them and we all have strengths too. By virtue of being human we’ll have a collection of both.
The trick is to focus on leveraging our strengths and accepting our weaknesses. There’s a element of vulnerability to admit there are certain things we just can’t excel at (spreadsheets and accounts in my case!) yet that doesn’t make us useless or broken or defect in some way. There are also many things we excel at and strengths we have and embracing both sides of this coin is key to our success.
Being authenticity you, true to all you are and all you believe in is the shortcut to being awesome and it’s an authenticity that develops as we age but exists within us all along, it’s our true heart and soul and when we’re are in touch with this, acting in accordance with this we’ve not need to improve ourselves or feel like we need to be different in anyway.
It’s not an excuse to sit and do nothing and to stay in a place that’s comfortable even when we know we can do better but it’s about being real with ourselves and allowing us to develop in our own time, pushing our limits and facing our fears but being patient, accepting and not beating ourselves up when we fail or when progress feels too slow.
This is awesome and this is being our best selves and by feeling comfortable and confident we show up beautifully in everyday life and inspire others with our flaws and imperfection and all.
It doesn’t stop us, it helps shape us into the best version of ourselves, no improvement necessary.
Find out more and join us for this New Year webinar
My top five wellness rituals that keep me at my best
There are so many articles out there from the rich, famous, successful people on how they remain at their best, what they put their success down to. Their health hacks through to their morning routines and everything in between. Where wellness impacts us the most is in this space of success. If we’re not well we can’t be successful. We can’t have great ideas, get through the workload or have the energy to inspire others. The healthier and happier we are as individuals the more effective and therefore successful we’re likely to be. It’s why wellness has become big business, in business.
It’s something I discovered the hard way burning out in a senior corporate role at one of the biggest companies in the country. Back in the days when I put hard work at the top of my to do list and deprioritised taking time off. I saw down time as a waste of time – unproductive! The result? My performance suffered and ultimately my health.
It’s why these lessons have become the strategies I swear by not just to keep me functioning well but to help me go that extra mile in terms of the ideas I have the work I produce and the impact it has. These are the strategies I attribute my success to and are what keep me bouncing out of bed each morning to do it all again – even on the hard days.
We’re only at our best when we feel healthy and well. It means we’re able to achieve so much more. When I’m well rested and at my best I come up with great ideas, I have more energy when I present and my mind is clearer when I sit down to tackle the to do lists. I can get done in a day what it used to take 3 days to do – and it’s better quality. From a performance perspective who wouldn’t say no to this? If this was a pill I was selling with the same results it’d be one of the best selling drugs of all time. There are similar themes that arise when CEOs and celebrities share their tips around wellness and what keeps them at their best, some you’ll recognise here. It’s not a coincidence. These are the things I swear by to keep me performing at my best.
Meditation – this has been life changing and over the last decade continues to be the number one skill I’ll always point to as the most important one I’ve ever learned – it’s also very simple. I sit for ten minutes each morning and observe my breathing, sometimes with the support of an app. Some days my mind is busy and other days peaceful but regardless of what I find this practice ensures I can cultivate calm and composure throughout the day. It has helped me become more self-aware, control my thinking patterns, handle set backs, respond rather than react and regulate my emotions as well as become more present and therefore more aware of what’s going on around me.
Movement – for me it’s yoga because it grounds me as well as stretching my body and strengthening my muscles. We’re all different though so it’s not really about what exercise you do it’s about making sure you move your body in a way that works for you. I also enjoy getting my heart rate up, even if that means a trip to the gym – the exercise endorphins make me happy and the fitness makes me healthy. I also appreciate the post workout sauna and my muscles relax and I get some thinking space – I’ve had many good ideas in the sauna post workout! I’m also a fan of walking though and for reasons well beyond the exercise – this also allows me to get out into nature which is also key for my wellness, I love the sunshine and feel the effects of a daily dose of vitamin D when I get outside.
Solitude – as much as I love public speaking, connecting with people and delivering workshops I know I need to couple this with some alone time. As an introvert being around lots of people exhausts me so when I’ve had a speaking heavy week I know I need a day to myself. I’m a thinker and without this quiet time to process my thoughts they get a bit jumbled. In a world of busyness and noise we’ve lost touch of the benefits of silence and time to be by ourselves.
Making sure I get an early night is key, I know I need my sleep and I know I’m not as effective without it, in terms of energy but also temperament and my ability to think clearly (therefore make decisions and problem solve). I’ve also got a lot better at saying no. I used to have a tendency to want to do all of the things – either because of FOMO or because I didn’t want to let people down. Now I experience the opposite JOMO and the joy of missing out by taking a bath and going to bed early whilst everyone else heads off to that post conference party.
Rather than waste energy on things I can not change or worry about what ifs I like to ensure I get perspective. I do this through a gratitude practice, that helps me see the positives in my life and my business and train the brain to offset its negativity bias. I also like to be aware of when my thoughts do tend towards the negative and why – what am I worrying about and what can I do about it. I keep the Dali Lamas saying close by at times like this “if there’s a solution to your problem great don’t worry. If there’s not a solution to your problem, there’s no point worrying”
Learning the art of acceptance and letting go of what we can’t control has been a game changer.
I notice when I don’t get time to devote to this stuff that my energy drops and I become less effective. My health and mood suffer too. That’s why these rituals sit at the top of my to do list. It’s critical for me to survive and be at my best. Not a nice to have, luxury item that I get around to at weekends or when I’ve done everything else on the to do list - because that never happens!
Of course this doesn’t make me immune to over doing it – taking on too much because of the high achiever drive or not saying no often enough because of the people pleasing tendencies. I also notice when I get busy I need to focus on this stuff more – and it’s ironic because it’s at that point we have the least time to devote to it! When I notice I’m in this space I spend less time on my device, cut down on what I’ve begun to drink as a coping mechanism or to ‘unwind’. I make an effort to eat more fruit and veg and get more sleep. It’s a great kick start that helps me find space to pause and breath and focus back on my wellness tools.
So now you know my secret to success, what’s yours? What keeps you functioning at your best and are you prioritising that?
Find out more on this free lunchtime webinar 16 December 2020
Building a buffer into your schedule
![goals].jpg](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a31b86b0100278a846060ea/t/5fc401b2fa04221c719c839a/1606681025688/goals%5D.jpg)
Recently I’ve been working on getting myself back to 100% after hitting a bit of a wall. One of the things I had to do was regain control of my schedule so I could carve out some me time and time off. I don’t know about you but I struggle to say no, I always want to help people out, take on more and often bite off more than I can chew or struggle to leave enough time for myself.
This year I set up automatic scheduling for all of my appointments which has been great for saving time, but I also noticed I’d end up with far too many appointments and struggle to fit in the stuff I needed to do for me as well. On reflection this freedom was one of the reasons I chose to work for myself and I’d seemingly given it away to an online scheduling tool!
I discovered that my scheduling tool actually has a buffer setting. This is a time limit you can set at the start/end of each meeting it books to give you time to breathe.
So often we find ourselves in back to back meetings without time to eat away from our desk or even go to the bathroom. To be our best we often need time between meetings to collect our thoughts, prepare, take a breath or at least a transition. Do you have a buffer? How can you create one?
It might not be via an electronic scheduling tool but the principle is the same. How can you create space in your schedule for you, time to breath and an effective transitions between activities? This used to be in the form of travel between meetings and home but these days the amount of time we spend on zoom or working from home these transitions and buffers are disappearing.
So now although I’ve handed control of my diary to an online scheduling tool I have regained control of keeping time back for me. I’ve also blocked out a day a week in my diary for me – whether that’s to catch up on admin or get to the gym. It gives me breathing space, a buffer and some flexibility in the busy weeks. I also know there’s one less excuse now to find time for the things that keep me effective, help my wellness and are so critical to keeping us at our best.
Are you busy or productive?
It’s an interesting question because most of us have been conditioned to believe that the busier we are the more productive we’ll be. We live in a world that prioritises quantity over quality – more is always better. The more hours you work the more valued you are as an employee, the more successful you’ll be, the more you’ll earn. Until we burn out. Then we’re not productive or valuable to anyone!
Busyness is fashionable, we wear busy like a badge of honour. It means we’re needed, valuable and productive. This attachment to busy has become a marker of our self-worth and we cling to it.
High achievers have this drive to do more or better, the need to prove ourselves. What ever we achieve, it’s never quite enough. We rush through life like its one big emergency trying to be all things to all people. Then when we burn out we feel guilty for letting people down. Sound familiar?
I was lucky enough to spend time in Bhutan, the kingdom famous for Gross National Happiness in place of GDP. On a hike in the beautiful Himalayan mountains I asked a much older but more nimble monk
“how far is it to the top?”
“it’s better to travel well than to arrive” he said ie slow down, enjoy the view.
Our societies attachment to busy means we no longer value the opposite of busy – we see down time as a waste of time. Do you feel selfish or guilty for taking time out for you? Even though it’s not just you that benefits from that time out. Imagine what a better partner, parent, worker, person you are when you’re not stressed out and tired? I know that everyone in my house benefits when I’ve had a good nights sleep!
It’s a concept I refer to as slowing down to speed up which I know sounds counter intuitive but bear with me! If we slow down, take time out, make time for self-care we find we become more effective and therefore speed up. Because tasks don’t take as long, decisions are easier to make and problems easier to solve, we can think clearly and we make less mistakes. This is the concept of slowing down that then enables us to speed up because we’re more effective.
Take the recent research into the 4 day week. Initially we thought there’s be a loss in productivity if we worked one day less – sounds logical right? What we find though is that we’re just as productive if not more in the shorter time because we’ve had down time, because we’re able to function at our best.
It’s this difference between busy and productive and they don’t mean the same thing. In fact the busier you are the chances are the less effective you’re going to be. We know that when we focus on one thing at a time one moment at a time we give it our full concentration and if we’re well rested, happy and healthy the quality of that concentration will be our best. Now compare that to trying to do a thousands things at once with the pressure and stress of diminishing hours in the day, you’re tied, the to do list is overflowing and you’re brain feels overwhelmed. What do you think the quality of that work you’re doing is like?
HBR reported a study that showed when we think we’re multitasking what the brain is actually doing is switching from one task to another in very quick succession, often micro seconds making it appear like we can multitask. But how good are those thoughts if we’re running so many of then through our brain in such quick succession? Could this be why we feel tired and overwhelmed so often and mental health issues continue to be on the rise?
Our glorification of busy and association between busy and success means that most people you ask at work about their day will tell you how busy they are – we think it means we’re productive. It means we’re not being as effective as we could be so don’t be busy, be productive. If you take time out and slow down what you’ll find is that you perform better and therefore are more effective and productive.
How offsetting your negativity bias will increase your confidence
Most of us feel uncomfortable accepting praise, and the negativity bias in our brain means we’re wired not to think of the positives so much – this combined with our modest culture and upbringing of course! We are predisposed to focus on the things we’re not good at rather than the things we are. We also emphasise this by spending a lifetime dwelling on this stuff and searching out evidence to prove ourselves right: we’re not as good as people think, and there are some fatal flaws within us that mean we’re not worthy and probably won’t succeed.
Our brains are predisposed to think more negatively. It’s how we’ve evolved and used to keep us safe. If we’re constantly scanning the horizon for the worst that can happen, we are able to react and prepare for that, which helped us survive back in the days of sabretooth tigers. However, in our modern life, this translates to noticing all the things we don’t like about ourselves, the things we’ve not got yet and what’s not gone well for us at work.
If I ask you to think of one negative thing that’s happened this week, it’ll probably come quite easy. Something that didn’t go well, someone who upset you? You’ll have probably been thinking about it for days since it happened and ruminating on it at night. Now, if I ask you the same question about something positive, it’s harder to recall; even if the positives outweigh the negatives for you this week, it’s the negatives we remember and reflect on.
We’re also very quick to move on to the next thing in our modern world so don’t spend time reflecting on the positive, what went well, why, what strengths we used. It’s about rewiring the neural pathways in our brain to see things more evenly. It’s not that life will be any different; we’ll just learn to see more of the positive as well as the negative.
Life has evolved at an amazing pace, and we’ve not caught up. Dr Barbara Fredrickson did a research study on positivity ratios and found to offset this bias that exists in the brain, we need a ratio of 3:1. That’s three positive thoughts, emotions or experiences to every one negative.
There’s a lot of work to be done in this space, as our negativity bias is like a well-worn walking track; we use it often so it’s smooth and easy to navigate. To even this out, we need to start firing more of the positive neural pathways and breaking down a less-travelled path in the brain, an overgrown track – you know those huts you find up in the mountains that have only been slept in once this year and are covered in moss? It’s like that and the chances are the track is more difficult to navigate, overgrown and steep.
So how can we counter this negativity bias and help train our brains to be a more positive place to be. It takes time, like training a muscle. We don’t go into the gym and pick up the heaviest weight, and this is similar. It’s not an overnight thing; we start small and build up – it takes practice.
The more we fire those positive neural pathways the more we’ll even out the bias and a more even positive distribution of thoughts will become our default state. It’s not that life changes but the lens we view it with does. We start to see the positives as well as the negatives.
It comes up often in my Imposter Syndrome courses. If we’re asking ourselves if we’re as good as people think or course a negative brain will only see evidence of why this is not true – further evidencing these feelings of not being good enough. However if we even out this bias to be a better reflection of reality that next time we ask ourselves that question we’ll see the answers have more evidence stacked in the positive corner to evidence what people are telling us – we are as good as they think!
One of the tools I love using for this (and still use today) is keeping a success diary.
This is my favorite strategy and started because I had a poor memory and wanted to prepare better for my annual performance reviews. By writing down the successes throughout the year, I got a lift each time I reflected on them. It provided evidence to offset my negativity bias and a place I could go to each time I doubted myself. These days, it’s an icon on my desktop because I’ve advanced technologically over the years, but choose what works for you. An inbox folder, a desktop icon and old fashion pen and paper journal or even a corkboard in your office with achievements and feedback from customers/clients attached.
Every time we add to this we’re walking down those overgrown tramping tracks and helping our brain retrain to see more of the positive. The negative will still be there sure but the voice won’t be as loud because we’ve been able to see a more even distribution of reality that includes some positives too.
If we were building our bicep muscle at the gym we’d keep doing the curls and the weight would build up until the muscle was naturally strong even when we weren’t at the gym lifting weights – it’s the same with our positive neural pathways in our brain.
My gratitude practice also helps me train the brain to be a more positive place to be and helps me notice more of the good that goes on. It’s a reminder every time I read feedback forms and notice one that’s not as good as the rest to check on my mind-set, the negativity bias, and ensure I’m seeing the full picture.
Check out the next Imposter Syndrome workshop or contact me to organise one for your business to learn more about overcoming your negativity bias and training the brain to be a more positive place.