One of my coworkers shared this article about overcoming imposter syndrome in our general slack channel today . . . a vulnerability I love to see. It’s a sign of a psychologically safe workplace when we can have those open discussions and support one another.
On a related note, I had a different employee talk to me the other week about forming a small women’s support group specifically for building confidence. She struggled with her own confidence and had talked to a few other women at the company who related. Naturally, I was supportive and suggested it be brought up at our larger women’s employee resource group to see if there is interest and go from there. But in this discussion I obviously related too– don’t we all struggle with confidence and imposter syndrome at some point? — and it was funny to me that the employee was shocked to learn that about me.
“You always seem so confident,” she said. And well, in a way, yes I am. But also NO NOT AT ALL I AM FAKING EVERYTHING. You know that fun oscillation in life where we go from ‘yes, I got this, I am the best, my judgment is impeccable and everyone should listen to me’ to ‘I have fooled everyone, I know nothing, at any moment I will be called out and stoned to death’.
There’s this meme/quote that I can’t find an attribution for that goes: “I have this weird self-esteem issue where I hate myself but think I’m better than everyone.”
Okay — that’s not actually me, but I think about it a lot when I walk this weird line of judging people for not doing what I would do and also not knowing what the hell I’m doing.
Another thing I think about when this topic of confidence and imposter syndrome come up is one of the Daily Stoic quotes that I have written about on this blog before:
The truth is, you will never be fully appreciated.
Ryan Holiday
Not by your parents. By your bosses.
By your country. By your own children.
But then again, why should you be?
Appreciating you is not their job. It’s your job. That’s why it’s called self-esteem.
This idea — that appreciating myself, that loving myself — is my job, shifted something in me that I come back to. A touchstone for my confidence.
With Love,
Natalie