A large part of my work as a City of London psychotherapist is confidence coaching. Many high-flyers go through their careers challenged by a lack of self-belief. With a poor sense of self-worth, confidence is difficult to achieve.
In confidence coaching, I work both above and below the radar.
I see confidence as visible behaviour and therefore above the radar. It can be manufactured and donned like a cloak. We can ‘act as if’ or ‘fake it until we make it’ as confidence is something we can appear to have even we don’t feel it.
However, poor self-worth will simmer below the radar all the time, ensuring that we are constantly critical about ourselves. In my practice, I tend to consider both as I believe there is little point in addressing confidence without considering what lies beneath.
Imposter syndrome at work is common in high achievers
Imposter syndrome is feeling like a fake or fraud at work and believing that one day you will be found out. It is the voice in your head telling you that you are not good enough, you are fooling everyone, you aren’t that talented, your success is down to luck and that others wouldn’t accept the ‘real you’. This is especially common in high achievers over the age of 50.
The requirement to have a university degree in order to get on professionally simply didn’t exist when boomers were young, but not having that rubber stamp whilst being surrounded by post-graduates can feel like a badge of dishonour. Then there are people who feel they don’t have the right degree, one that is good enough and people who have excellent degrees but aren’t Oxbridge educated. We can get pretty creative in finding ways to stop ourselves from feeling confident!
A confidence coaching case study
Imposter Syndrome is very common in London City financial services, law firms and consulting.
Jennifer*, a consultant with one of the big 4, came to me a few years ago and clearly absolutely loved her work as a senior consultant. She had been always been extremely successful. However, after many years of consistently helping companies to improve in a multiplicity of ways, she found herself having to help her client wind down their business. She had been certain that she would instead be helping them to get over their problems and establishing new ways to make them more successful. She was very anxious when she came to see me, seeing her client’s business demise as her own professional failure.
She was suffering panic attacks, insomnia and was drinking heavily. Her relationship with her partner was suffering as she was irritable much of the time. After only ever having experienced success, trying to deal with what she perceived as failure, had overwhelmed her. Her confidence had drained away and she was terribly worried about what people at work would be thinking about her. It was as though she had climbed all the ladders but with this particular client’s misfortunes, she had tumbled down all the snakes. Jennifer was telling herself that she had failed and that somehow this ‘failure’ had eclipsed all of her success.
Decreasing overwhelm with confidence coaching and therapy
By using a combination of coaching and psychotherapy, Jennifer became able to bring down her overwhelm and manage her panic attacks. Then we were able to go under the radar to learn what was behind her very significant dip in confidence. Together we unpicked the tapestry of earlier perceived failures in her teenage years that had been swept under the carpet and had never been examined by her from her adult perspective.
In coming to terms with the fact that her teenage self was simply doing pretty standard things that teenagers do, she was able to leave behind the shame and guilt she had carried for years and then she could piece together the fracture in her self-belief. She realised that her confidence had been just a veneer over quite a fragile and vulnerable sense of self. Jennifer stayed in the coaching process for a few months and left my practice both calmer and feeling a lot more robust.
If Jennifer’s story resonates with you or you would like to discuss confidence coaching don’t hesitate to get in touch by calling me on 07775 570208 or if you are out of hours Send Me A Message.
Therapy and coaching at London Bridge and Barbican
Tube Locations: My closest tube stations are London Bridge (5 mins) Borough (3 mins) Moorgate (5 mins) St. Paul’s (10 mins) Barbican (10 mins) and Liverpool Street (10 mins). I work with individuals as well as couples, therapy sessions can be face to face, on Skype, FaceTime, on the phone or via email London, UK and worldwide.
Living with a lack of confidence
It is absolutely possible to live feeling low in confidence but it doesn’t make for a happy, healthy life. It will impact business decisions as well as personal and professional relationships.
It can make professional requirements such as public speaking or networking events excrutiating and may lead you to avoid doing presentations or taking the lead in areas that you are otherwise very well equipped to manage.
If your low confidence is visible then it is possible that you are being passed over for promotions and it will impact how seriously your authority is taken.
*Name, gender and career have been changed to protect anonymity.