She runs a multimillion-dollar business for a large company with thousands of employees. She has an advanced degree and a track record of successful stints in high-level leadership positions in high-profile companies. She appears poised and confident, is a role model to other women, and cherishes her home life. She projects the epitome of “having it all,” and makes the concept seem seamless to all who observe her from the outside.
When you get inside her head, however, the story playing in it is startlingly different. She sits in many executive meetings at work with knots in her stomach, worrying if what she is saying is coming across as credible. She is secretly terrified of not knowing enough about the topic at hand, and beats herself up constantly for not being informed. Before major presentations, she is a nervous wreck, despite the accolades she receives afterward. She is frequently terrified of looking stupid, making a mistake, or not having all the answers.
At home, she compares herself to other women and feels guilty and inadequate for not making dinner every night or spending enough time volunteering at her kids’ schools. On the personal front, she looks in the mirror and criticizes herself for the lack of perfection that she sees reflected back at her. Her public and private personas are paradoxical — outward achievement and success hide internal anxiety, guilt, self-criticism and comparison.
As an executive coach and leader of women’s leadership development programs, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have been privy to this secret storyline playing in the heads of incredibly successful women. While self-doubt and self-criticism happen to all of us, I encounter it all too often in women.
If you can see yourself in the description I outlined above, here are three tips that can help break this unconscious self-critical and self-doubting narrative:
1. Focus On The Purpose
When you are in the center of your thoughts, you are overly conscious of yourself and your behaviors. The focus is on how you come across, what you say, and what others think about you. In reality, the interactions aren’t about you.
When you instead internally step outside and away from yourself and place the center of attention on the purpose of the activity or the interaction you are having, the result you are driving toward, and on the others around you, you are in a more objective position and can have greater influence. “It is not about me” is a powerful mantra to practice saying to yourself and can help alleviate the self-imposed pressure you place on yourself to be perfect.
2. Notice And Reframe Your Self-Critical Thoughts
When you have a self-critical thought, such as “I should know more,” or “they must think I am incompetent,” notice the self-critical nature of it. When you catch your thought in the moment, immediately reframe the words you are thinking away from yourself as the center. “I should know more” becomes “What other information do we need to get here?” and “They must think I am incompetent” becomes “What will constitute success?”
When you recognize the self-criticism that paralyzes action and reframe it into impersonal questions, you move from having your ego be at the center to a place of finding objective solutions.
3. Separate Your Self-Worth From Perfection And Achievement
When your self-worth is attached to how perfect you are or how much you achieve, it is incredibly fragile. Any temporary setback or perceived failure can send your confidence into a downward spiral.
Make a list of your strengths, talents and unique attributes and write them on an index card. Remind yourself that these attributes are part of who you are regardless of the mistakes you will inevitably make and any perceived failures you think you experience. Carry the index card around with you and pull it out to reground yourself when you are having a confidence crisis or are beating yourself up for not measuring up to your own impossible perfection standards.
While ridding ourselves of self-doubt and criticism is a lifelong journey and requires much practice, the three antidotes above go a long way in helping ease the self-imposed pressure we place upon ourselves.
What tips or strategies can you share to add to these?
