Are you scared of getting found out?
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Isn’t it funny how life just gives you what you need sometimes. I’ve been working with new client recently who is struggling with an enormous amount of change - not pandemic related, but chuck that in on top and it’s a proven a pretty potent mix - unsurprisingly their teams are really feeling the effects.
I can’t remember how it even came to me but I was reminded of the incredibly pertinent concept of VUCA. In case you’re unfamiliar, it stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous and it refers to the challenges that all businesses must face in the modern world.
If anything I think the last year has probably provided VUCA + to so many of you and this heady combination of external factors has shaken many a leader to the core.
Reaching the heights of your career or business unfortunately doesn’t provide immunity to feeling the effects of these things acutely. The additional responsibility makes you even more susceptible and, what I’m hearing, is that so many of you feel even less able to show that as your teams struggle with the immense pressure that they’ve had to face too.
This can lead to intense feelings of isolation and a fear of getting found out. And with recent events that’s hardly surprising. But that doesn’t stop you feeling as though you should really have it all far more under control.
The most common thoughts I find my clients wrestling with are:
What if I’m not up to the task of dealing with these challenges?
What if my team realise I don’t have the experience?
There’s so many people out that could do this better than me.
What if I don’t have the skills to deal with this?
What if I get found out?
Whether you realise it or not, these thoughts are impostor syndrome.
And if there’s one thing I’ve found myself helping my clients with more often than anything else recently, it’s this.
If you regularly read my blogs you won’t be a stranger to Steve Peters’ brilliant book The Chimp Paradox. If this is your first time here let me explain quickly… the basic premise of the book is that you have three parts to your brain -
the computer - the logical part of your brain that stores useful information
the human - who wants the best outcome, reached in the best way
the chimp - who is strong, volatile, quick to act, incredibly sensitive to risk and very short-termist
When you suffer from impostor syndrome your chimp is constantly whispering, sometimes shouting in your ear - this is too risky, I want to go home and be safe, we’re better off not being here, what if everyone finds out you’re not up to the job.
Now, you’re pretty high up in your business so you’ve probably got pretty good at ignoring your chimp. But I hate to tell you, that can be a somewhat dangerous strategy. Your chimp is very strong and does’t like being ignored. And in a VUCA world, the risks just keep coming. In a VUCA + world that effect is magnified exponentially.
Think of it like this, the constant pressure of the challenges that exist create so much pressure that cracks start to appear. And it’s those cracks that can let your chimp through.
What happens when your chimp takes charge is that you start to focus on the threat not the actions. You start to become hyper aware of the risks that exist and lose sight of your potential to work through those risks, to innovate. You lose access to the human and computer brains that serve you so well.
To help my clients get to know their chimp better, I regularly use a model by Shirzad Chamine called the saboteurs assessment. This model provides a good tool to break down exactly what your chimp is reacting to. Your saboteurs are a cast of characters that each have their own negative voice in your head.
Voices like the hyper achiever - who tells you there’s no point trying unless you are going to be the best. The hyper vigilant who is enormously risk averse and the restless saboteur who tells you not to focus on the thing you’re doing in case you’re missing out on something.
You can find out what your saboteurs are using the brilliant online assessment here - it’s free and takes about 5 minutes. It’s so insightful.
Identifying that your chimp is in charge and then working out which of the saboteurs is at the root of that chimp’s behaviour is a helpful way to work out where your impostor thoughts are coming from.
Of course there will always be examples to back up your saboteurs and as an intelligent, successful person you will like to be able to prove yourself right. However in this instance you need to flip your thinking and start to prove your chimp wrong.
You can of course do this yourself, but coaching can be an enormously helpful tool in the battle to tame your chimp! With the help of a skilled coach you can identify these unhelpful thought patterns, spot when they occur and start to reframe them. I help my clients to ‘out’ their perceived threats so that we can understand what’s at the root of what they’re feeling.
Then we can work on a future vision and desired state and start to do the work on shifting the existing paradigm.
An external perspective is the key to breaking the thought cycles that can sap your energy, creativity, clarity and focus.
If you’d like to get to know your chimp better, and free yourself from the energy sapping nature of impostor syndrome why not drop me a line.
