“To attain success without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.”
Nathanial Brandon
In my previous life I was a teacher. Not a very good one either I don’t think (that’s not just a ‘limiting belief’ cropping up by the way, I think it’s most likely a verifiable, objective fact!)
I never had the joy, passion or enthusiasm for teaching which is essential in a career which holds so much responsibility. I never allowed my teaching career to take off, to be truthful. I went from covering maternity leaves to going on maternity leaves with nothing substantial in between. My husband and I moved jobs, locations and countries at the drop of a hat back then, and I never got my feet under the table in one particular job. As a result, my confidence was rock bottom. I saw teachers around me who had been in their particular field or subject for years, knew their curriculum by rote and could effortlessly manifest amazing lessons.
I, on the other hand, had moved from primary to secondary; state to private; IB to GCSE; SEN specialist to RE co-ordinator. There was no consistency or expertise in any of my roles. I was just winging it. Every single day. I have come across the term “Imposter Syndrome” since leaving teaching, (according to the Centre of Legal Leadership, up to 70% of the current population suffer with it), but had I known of it back then I would have thought the term had been created about me.
I would plan my resources late into the night every night, working until 1 or 2 in the morning to get them ‘just right’, but come sunrise, have no faith in them - or myself. On my way to work I would pray a car would crash into me (after I had delivered my children safely to nursery of course) so that I could be (mildly) hospitalised and not have to face my day ahead. When at work, I would skirt around the corners of the staff room, not making eye contact as I “just knew” my colleagues were all secretly talking about me - and my terrible lessons - behind my back.
Then, I learned my school was to be inspected. As the dreaded ‘Ofsted’ loomed, panic seriously began to set in; when the inspectors arrived, they would surelyreveal me for the fraudster I was. Thus far I had managed pull the wool over my head’s and colleagues’ eyes, but when the school was put under rigorous scrutiny, I would be revealed as a serious chink in the armour. Because of me, they would fail.
What followed was a period of deep, dark despair and anxiety.
I drank. A lot. I cried, most of the time. Beliefs in my own inadequacy plagued my day and night. I was snappish and fraught with my children, and my friends and family were seriously worried. I needed desperately to escape from my own thoughts, but they hunted me down and warped my reality so significantly that I became barely recognisable.
I needed to get out of my job, that was clear. This was too much to bear. The anxiety, guilt, shame hounded me relentlessly, but equally, to quit was to let so many people down. My self-misery was compounded by my desperate need to not disappoint my friends and colleagues. Somehow, whatever action I took, staying or leaving, I was going to fail them.
Looking back, my boss was flipping incredible. She recognised my cry for help, and when she realised that she could do nothing to strengthen my conviction in my own capabilities, she allowed me to ease out of my role with dignity and grace. She took on my class herself and when the time came for my exit she orchestrated it so I could slip away with no fuss and no outcry from parents. I cannot thank her enough for this.
So, after much torment and liver abuse, I was now foot-loose and fancy free.
Or in reality, broke and broken.
It was time to build myself back up again.
Not being one to ever sit idle, I threw myself now utterly and completely into my coaching business. I had started a coaching qualification a few years earlier during maternity leave with my first child. However, work, more babies, finance drying up, meant that it had been put completely on the back burner. When I did fall back into it however, it was with the complete passion and gusto that had been missing from my teaching career all those years. Finally, I had found something that I loved! When I eventually had my own clients, I realised that it was also something I was actually good at. I was making connections and making a difference, and it felt amazing!
One of the greatest things I have learned through my coaching experience is to “turn your wounds to wisdom”. With everything that I went to through by quitting my job, and all the anxiety and shame that accompanied this, it now means that when a client comes to me with feelings of inadequacy, I can 100% relate. Are they having panic attacks about being judged? I’ve been there! Feeling a failure at everything they do? I’ve got that t-shirt!
If you were to join Weight Watchers, and the representative was a stick-thin glamour-pus who had never been tempted by a donut in her life, you wouldn’t feel much rapport or connection, right? Same goes for coaching! I am grateful for every one of my wobbles, anxieties, and downright depressive episodes, because in overcoming them I have gained so many valuable tools and techniques which I love sharing with my clients.
So, my advice to anyone suffering with ‘Imposter Syndrome’:
1) Talk to someone – anyone - about how you are feeling. Often getting our deepest fears and most anxious thoughts out of our head and into actual words means that we can look at them objectively and ask ourselves: ‘how much of this is actually fact?’ And how much is just a foggy feeling of ‘I’m not good enough’, and not based in reality?
2) Create a list of all of the accomplishments you have achieved at work. What verifiable evidenceis there that you are actually great at your job? (Probably lots!)
3) Ask for a review from your boss. Explain that you have been feeling anxious about your performance and ask for some honest feedback. (Chances are they’ll say that you are doing a great job, in which case believe them!If they don’t, at least you know now; take the criticism as constructive and you can do something about it).
4) Be KIND to yourself. Repeat “I am enough”. You don’t have to be perfect; perfect doesn’t exist. You are enough, just as you are.
If you relate to any of the above then book onto a call today to discuss further
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