When I first heard the term impostor syndrome, I didn’t really know what it meant. However, it’s a topic that frequently comes up for entrepreneurs and career-advancing professionals. And recently, I’ve noticed a lot of impostor syndrome topics being discussed in the admin circles I follow. As I dug into the subject a bit, I realized impostor syndrome is something many assistants struggle with too! Exposing the root causes of impostor syndrome is important because self-doubt hurts your career!
What is impostor syndrome? It’s feeling like a fake or a fraud even though you are more than qualified and capable of doing the work you are doing. It’s those feelings of self-doubt that creep in and make you second guess your achievements and even cause you to give someone or something else credit for them. Dr. Valerie Young sums it up like this, “Because people who feel like impostors hold themselves to an unrealistic and unsustainable standard of competence, falling short of this standard evokes shame.”
If this sounds like something you’ve struggled with, we have dozens of articles and resources we’ll be sharing on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages throughout the month of May. It’s also the theme for this month’s AdminPro Training Series webinar, How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome as The Innovative Admin™. This session covers what impostor syndrome is, how to tell if you suffer from it, what to do about it, and how to transform the way you think about yourself and your accomplishments going forward!
For me, self-awareness has also been a huge factor in combating self-doubt that has led to impostor syndrome at various points in my career. Being a student of birth order, strengths, and personality type has helped me better understand myself and my colleagues, which has made a tremendously positive impact on how I view my achievements in relation to my individual strengths versus others. Comparing ourselves to others is never a good idea. But we’ve all done it, and it can contribute to the impostor feelings we experience. Having a higher level of self-awareness using tools like personality type assessments and strengths gives us a healthier perspective when analyzing our accomplishments.
This week’s feature article shares some tips for understanding personality type at the office. Knowing how we are energized, how we send and receive information, how we make decisions, and how we structure our lives allows us to surround ourselves with the right information, people, and resources to succeed.
Supporting your administrative success,
Julie Perrine
P.S. The better you know and understand your own personality type, the more effective you can be in supporting the executives and staff around you. It makes you a better communicator, collaborator, and problem solver in the office. This All Things Admin Training on Demand session will show you how to better understand and self-validate your own personality type, ways to determine type preferences of your colleagues, and much more. This webinar is available as soon as you register.
