Do you feel like a fraud in your job?

Do you ever feel like a fraud in your job??

Hi, Thank you for joining my newsletter.

Before I begin with today's newsletter, I would like to reintroduce myself. I am Carmel, the founder of Sakura Thinking. I help corporate individuals to overcome impostor syndrome and lead with more resilience and confidence even in challenging times in their career and life. Although my main focus is your career and your company, I like to look at the bigger picture and take all areas of your life into account. I absolutely love helping people breakthrough their barriers and create more success, happiness and fulfilment in their career and life. I know how it feels to be qualified enough, experienced enough but still feel like a fraud and how extreme it can get when you suffer in silence. Let’s break the silence today. I have coached hundreds of corporate individuals who all felt like impostors and celebrated with them many a promotion, and a successful career transition.?All my findings in these newsletters are from coaching and interviewing hundreds of corporate individuals. I hope you enjoy the read.?

Are you feeling like a fraud in your job?

You might have started in a new position that you were really excited about and all of a sudden you are feeling inadequate.

OR

You could be in the same role for a number of years and it is time for a positive change but you don’t feel ready or good enough to make that change happen.?

You might feel really alone with these feelings of inadequacy but guess what? The feelings you are experiencing are totally normal. Statistics show that over 70% of adults experience impostor syndrome at some point in their career. Just to refresh, impostor syndrome is when one feels like a fraud and puts down their success to a lucky strike, and completely ignores their past career experience and qualifications. They feel like others are more successful and are just waiting for the day that their colleagues figure out they are a fraud.

Impostor syndrome can hold you back in the following ways:

• You might hold yourself back and not speak up at meetings?to sharing your knowledge and ideas with your team
• You can feel like other team members are more successful than you?
• You hold back in applying for jobs as you don't feel eligible or good enough
• You might be delaying or avoiding tasks like presenting your findings to management, breaking the ice with the boss, meeting your new clients, customers, colleagues or stakeholders which is all needed to move forward in the job (By the way this one is very common, nearly all my clients have mentioned avoidance here when starting a new job)
• You start to isolate yourself at work, instead of buddying up, networking and building relationships?
• You become the yes person and people please unnecessarily
• You work extra hours to make up for the fraudulent feelings?
• You feel like you don’t belong and think thoughts like "why did they hire me?"
• You feel not good enough
• You attribute your success to chance or luck?
• You can get so stressed, that the self-care and home-life gets neglected too. You start to lose sleep, can't focus on personal interests and lose the will to exercise (believe me, I have heard it over and over how the impostor syndrome has taken over so much that other areas start to get neglected)

Yes, all these thoughts and feelings can eat away at your confidence, distract your focus and result in a poor performance.?You can start to sink in the job, even though you are good enough, you are more than capable of success in this role.

What can you do to overcome impostor syndrome? Here are my top 3 tips in overcoming impostor syndrome.?

1. Challenge your thoughts and encourage yourself. Write down all the thoughts you are thinking about yourself in this job right now. Be honest with yourself. Why don’t you feel adequate and successful? What does success look like for you? Are you comparing yourself to how you were in your last job and not giving yourself a chance to be new? Are you frustrated that you don’t know all the answers yet? Are you expecting yourself to be innovative when you need to learn how to do the new job first? It can be challenging to be a beginner, the learner and new again when you just left a job where you were the expert in your field, the go to person and you have a high expectation to fit this standard in your new role immediately. Go easy on yourself. High achievers can be very hard on themselves. What are more encouraging and realistic thoughts to support you in your new job or current job??
2. Create a success bank. A success bank is a list of your achievements and the tasks you completed. You can keep a daily success bank in your new job. Write it all down, everytime you take a step forward, learn something new, even when you pull up the courage and have a one-to-one with a new colleague, write it down. If you can’t think of anything and this is because you are feeling lousy, then drop your standards, did you show up today? Write it down. Did you attend any meetings? Write it down. Did you attend trainings? Write it down. Did you have lunch with someone? Did you go for a walk? Did you make an effort and dress up for the job? It can be the basic things that flops when we feel lousy. I always loved the success bank. This was one of the first coaching exercises I received. I found it so empowering, and encouraging and realistic. It will help you to feel better and boost your mood and actually you will be more motivated to create more success.?You can also make a list of past success banks to remind you of all you accomplished and achieved in previous jobs, careers, and education. Remind yourself of how far you have come as you are not starting again. You have past success to prove to yourself you are not a fraud. Try this one out for a few days and you will then see what I mean.?
3. Stop comparing yourself to others. It is actually unrealistic to compare yourself to others. They might look like they have it all together but you really have no clue how they feel inside. In fact, they might think you have it all together. You are all coming from different backgrounds, qualifications and experiences. You can’t compare yourself right now to someone who is in the job longer. You might see them as a role model or a potential mentor but it is not good for you to fall into the trap of comparisonitis. I recall a client who was experiencing impostor syndrome in a new role, he was a program manager for a new tech start up and had years experience in a previous role. Once the impostor syndrome kicked in, he spent days observing what everyone else was getting done rather than focusing on what he needed to do. He would notice someone who started the same time as them networking with her new team. He felt way behind just because he saw her have a coffee with the new boss, something he was avoiding. Instead of being inspired by her, he chose to believe his thoughts that she was way ahead and those thoughts helped him stay stuck. In the end, he discovered by breaking the ice with his colleague that she too felt like an impostor. So you really never know and you cannot jump to conclusions based on what something appears on the outside. The best thing to do is to get organised, make a list of what you need to focus on and take steps forward on those tasks.?

So that is my few tricks for you from my toolbox today. You will find each tip helpful if you try it out and of course share them with your team. We always come across direct reports or colleagues who are experiencing a confidence knock, or feeling like an impostor. Please feel free to share this newsletter with them.?

As I mentioned, you are not alone with your feelings of inadequacy. You don’t need to get through this alone either, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help. Perhaps, you are a private person and don’t feel comfortable sharing your thoughts and feelings with your work place and your family/partner is not able to relate as they are not in your profession. Don’t fret. I understand that completely and that is why I am here. I guarantee a safe, confidential and relatable space for my clients. I offer private one to one coaching and I even have a self-coaching program which I have started enrolling and that will commence for 2023. Even if you just want to get a taste of what Sakura Thinking can offer you, I can give you a free clarity call where there is absolutely no pressure to sign up to anything. We will explore your challenges and barriers and future vision. It will give you some clarity and encouragement and sound advice that will definitely help you feel better, understand the benefits of coaching and your future options. You can book your call here now today. If you have any further questions, please break the ice and send me a message on Linkedin or pop me an email at [email protected]?

Thank you for reading. Have a wonderful weekend.?Please like, comment and share this newsletter. Subscribe if you have not already.

What my clients say:

Taz

Senior Principal Product Manager at Oracle.

I highly recommend Carmel and her approach to coaching. She takes time to understand you as an individual and really focuses in on those things that may be holding you back from achieving your goals, be it personal or professional. Every session leaves me amazed at how much more I've learned about myself. She helps to put a clear actionable plan in place to move forward and ensure progression. I'm already seeing big improvements in a short space of time in my organisational, influencing, and leadership skills. While working with Carmel of Sakura Thinking, I was promoted to Director Position.?

Kal

Associate Director?at Regeneron?

I originally started working with Carmel for help to build a strategy to climb back up the career ladder after a few years away from my profession. Over the past few months, Carmel has helped me grown in confidence and I have gradually built the courage inside to raise my profile within my professional environment. I love the way Carmel takes a very holistic approach to help guide and support me through my journey of reaching my goals and realising my aspirations. Thank you, Carmel, for helping me to find a new leadership role!