How to stop undermining yourself

I am surprised how many amazing, qualified, and experienced people that I meet undermine their achievements. I don’t know why I am so surprised, I do it myself!

Here are some ways you can undermine yourself and some alternatives to try.

Stop apologising

If you are in HR it is very likely that you are delivering messages or working in areas that are emotive and this can be uncomfortable. Apologising for the message being delivered or a decision that has been taken can feel like it takes the edge off. I don’t think it does. It is more helpful to focus on listening really carefully and providing the support and information that the person affected needs. Apologising muddies the water and makes you seem like you have done something wrong.

Assuming your strengths are less valuable than other peoples

I see this so much when I am working with clients who are going through redundancy or changing jobs. Saying “it’s just part of my day job”, or “everyone does this” undermines your achievements. It can take time to understand the value you bring and that it is different to what others bring, but not less valuable.

Let me give you a personal example. For 8 years I job-shared the role of HR Manager for a food manufacturing site. My job share partner was more extrovert, I was more introvert. She was forceful and happy to tackle things head on. I liked to think things through. She enjoyed training, I preferred employment law. For many years I thought I needed to be more like her to be successful. But she was the one that helped me see that we brought different strengths. We found a way of working where we would split tasks and challenges depending on our strengths, we were able to influence different people and help each other out. There is more than one style that works. We all bring different things. No-one can benefit from these strengths if we don’t acknowledge them and use them.

Don’t over value failure and under value success

We all know that you learn more from failure than you do from success. I saw a fab sports quote along the lines of “we win or we learn”. But we don't always view failure or mistakes in this way and nor does society. Once I was working at a site that was in a declining market and was struggling to break even. Our site did not get the part of the bonus that depended on hitting numbers. There was another site that was in a growing sector and was hitting its numbers. They got their bonus. People were working equally hard in both businesses. We learned a lot of lessons that helped turn the business around. But here's the thing, you don’t have to look at yourself very hard when you are wining.

You have to work harder to see the positives

We are wired to focus on the negatives, we needed this way of thinking in the past to survive and to keep ourselves safe. It makes sense. In our current world most of the threats we face don’t need the fight or flight response. They tend to be psychological threats rather than survival threats. Therefore we have to work a bit harder to hear the positives. Here are some of the things that can help with focusing on the positives

• Keeping a success log
• Spend a few minutes a day thinking about what we are grateful for
• Accepting compliments
• Affirmation – telling ourselves positive messages to reprogramme some of the harsh and often untrue negative ones that we tell ourselves, “I am enough” is a great one.
• Accept a compliment, say thank you and don’t dismiss it!

Taking criticism personally

People criticize others for many reasons, it normally says more about them than it does about you. If someone criticizes you without offering a way of moving things forward they are probably trying to make themselves feel better. HR is a very convenient place to land blame within an organisation. If you are criticised ask yourself, is this aimed at me or the situation? If it is at me personally, is it fair? Is there anything I can learn from this? How can I move forward? I find it hard not to take criticism personally but some objective questions can help with not dwelling on it.

Taking everyone’s advice over your own

Ever had a difficult decision to make and asked for lots of opinions only to find you still make the decision your gut feeling told you in the first place? Glennon Doyle puts it beautifully in her book Untamed when she says “why do I trust everyone on earth better than I trust myself?”

?

I work with frustrated HR professionals to help them thrive and find their own style to thrive at work. If you would like to chat about how coaching and mentoring can work for you I would love to chat to you. An initial 30 minute meeting is free with no obligation after that. https://tidycal.com/jennie1/30-minute-meeting