I can't do backflips; some days, the yoga pose pictured above will always be impossble, and I will never understand calculus.
My clients readily concede similar inconsequential personal limitations, such as weak second serves, killing house plants, and messy closets.
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Chatter The Voice In Our Head, Why It Matters, and How To Harness It, by Ethan Kross, offers ways to quiet, unhealthful chatter.
We chatter to ourselves at a rate of four thousand words per minute! Usually, this internal narrative is valuable and allows us to:
form memories
reflect on decisions
control emotions
simulate alternative futures
keep track of goals
define ourselves
reminisce
Neil Patrick Harris shared that he has imposter syndrome on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast. So a Tony, Emmy, and Screen Actor Guild Award winner faces imposter syndrome!
How can such an accomplished professional still be plagued by fear of failure?
Most of us (including Tony winners) experience Imposter Syndrome whenever we take on new challenges, embrace learning new skills, or seek new responsibilities.
Most of us see ourselves as the heroes of our own stories. We happily own our successes but too often blame others for challenges and setbacks. When we look to others to solve OUR problems, we’ve given up our cape. We are no longer the hero-we’re the victim. Read this case- a near real-life example.
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A former client (let's call him Bob) returned yesterday. Bob insisted that his job was fine except:
He was underpaid
He was serving as a VP but didn't have the title
His boss was always looking for 110%
Let me tell you a story about a young, ambitious man; I'll call him Adam.
Adam is 30 and has worked for a well-known tech company for a couple of years as an individual contributor. Adam's peers are moving into the first level of people management without him.
Adam believes he's stuck because:
I've been spending time at the dog park. My six-month-old puppy, Clicquot, loves to chase and be chased by other dogs, and my 9-year-old dog, Gatsby, isn't interested. So at the park, Clicquot runs and runs while Gatsby catches the frisbee over and over and over.
I recently reconnected with Kelly Eppley, one of my clients, to learn what our coaching meant to her.
We started to work together when Kelly's beloved boss left her organization, the last in a series of events that had Kelly questioning her tenure and direction in her organization. Kelly loved her co-workers and her boss, so she had stayed beyond her "expiration date" even though she had grown restless.
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We had a wonderful time exploring Detroit recently. We tried feather bowling, a weird combination of curling, Bocce, and shuffleboard--you bowl in long, dusty, rounded lanes. We explored an indoor Saturday market, wandered through an old-style antique/junk store, and visited the fish at the newly re-opened Aquarium on Bell Island.
One night, we snuggled in to watch a few movies and I suggested an old classic, Being There, starring Peter Sellers.