What I do when I feel inadequate at work

My clients tell me they feel inadequate when...

After securing the coveted VP of Operations position, a colleague tells them their communication needs to be improved, without specific examples, while referencing an obscure communication framework from a management handbook in the 1990s.

And they feel inadequate when, in a meeting about the high-profile project they're leading, their boss suggests a strategy to win the client in a way they hadn't yet thought of.

So they worry folks are frustrated to work with someone behind the eight-ball... Even though they've already followed up with fully fleshed-out presentations in response to the suggestion.

My clients, high-achievers with mile-high expectations for themselves, worry feeling inadequate is a sign there's something wrong with them, that it's their fault, or that they don't belong in a meeting full of smart people.

That's when I fess up, Jamie, to be someone who feels inadequate pretty much every working day of my life.

Yet I keep growing, and I'm effective at helping my clients grow beyond their "imposter syndromes" because I know this one mic-drop of a fact:

A feeling is not the truth of my existence.

But why do I feel inadequate, so damn often, you ask? 

Maybe because I'm an immigrant in America and, in the fifth grade, where I was the only non-white kid in the class, Robert P. said so casually and without prompting that I have an attitude problem. 

Maybe because I'm a highly sensitive person (shoutout to my fellow HSPs) who often feels dizzy in a din and nauseous for no apparent reason. And who, nonetheless, sets high expectations for herself (like my clients).

Maybe. 

What I know for sure is that it helps to put pen on paper, when feeling inadequate becomes like a pointy pebble in my shoe. Sitting down to journal is like stopping mid-walk, slipping off the shoe, and shaking it loose until the pebble falls into view. 

I write my thoughts down as simply, bluntly, and child-like as I can, like this: 

• I need to do this right, or I'll be a failure. 

• I'm afraid to disappoint people. 

• I should've done more than what I got done.

Then, a funny thing happens.

I notice my patterns. The perfectionist, all-or-nothing thinking. The unintentional dehumanizing of myself. The arguing with what is. 

I get a glimmer of self-awareness, and I start to smile. 

Oh, how human of me to have these thoughts. Yes, even after more than a decade of personal development and getting coached again and again. 

Byron Katie, one of my favorite teachers, says that thoughts are like clouds in the sky, numerous yet immaterial, beguiling yet fleeting. 

Like clouds, thoughts come and go. None of them are solid or true.

Then I try these new thoughts on, like a silk shirt at a Uniqlo dressing room: 

• What if I was willing to be a "failure"? What if I was willing to be open to the possibility of making mistakes, learning from them, and becoming even better as a result? 

• What if I was willing to disappoint people? What might it be like to liberate me from the socialized misconception that I'm not safe unless everyone else around me were pleased, impressed, and happy with me (as if such a thing were even possible)? 

• What if my yesterday happened the way it was supposed to? 

Tension in my chest loosens. My shoulders drop, and I breathe deeper, feeling less scared and more open to the unknowns of my unfolding day, week, the future.

In this process, my feeling inadequate becomes my superpower. 

The superpower of being intimate, cheek to cheek, with my humanity.

The superpower of knowing that behind feeling inadequate is just a thought waiting to be questioned and turned on its head.

Today, I helped my clients turn their perceived inadequacies into these new thoughts: 

• I am healthily assertive 

• I'm actually enjoying the learning process (with the nervousness and uncertainty that come with the journey) 

• No amount of achieving, proving, or perfecting grants me a pass on the human experience (which includes the annoyance of dealing with workplace sexism) 

Here's the TLDR; 

I feel inadequate every day, and it helps me be a fabulous coach. (Here's where you can read all about working with me, btw) 

If you feel inadequate in any way, consider that's because you're having a human experience...

Believing a thought that isn't true, 

Growing in a brand new way,

Or maybe, you're on the cusp of your greatest breakthrough yet. 

In your corner, 

Jamie