Sue’s practices for limiting self-doubt have been featured on HR.com! We are grateful to have our insights shared on this resource.
Most leaders project a calm, confident exterior to the world, but beneath that calm public exterior lurks the fear of being found out as a fraud. They wonder, What if they discover I’m not who I’m pretending to be? Or I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m just making it up as I go along. In fact, the more successful the leader is, the louder and more persistent these voices can become. This lack of internal confidence is real, and somehow no achievement is ever quite significant enough to reassure us we’ve arrived. The bar just keeps raising. For many businessowners I know, their first landmark of success is hitting $1M in revenue. After that, the goal is to get to $10M because to them, “$1M just isn’t that much.” I have heard people with multi-million-dollar businesses say “I’ve got a baby business” compared to other business owners. It gets worse the more successful we become. “The more challenging issues people face, the easier it is to get trapped down the rabbit hole of self-doubt and uncertainty,” shares Mandy Gilbert, Founder and CEO of Creative Niche. So, what do we do?