This Little Light of Mine

July 23, 2020| blackwomenlead, blogger, confidence, impostersyndrome, leadership, strategy

And just when you think you've built the skills and automaticity to overcome, it hits you like a tone of bricks...imposter syndrome. The urges to revert back to extended work hours, skipped workouts and neglected quiet time reared their cyclical heads last week. Why? Imposter Syndrome. I became intrigued about about imposter syndrome around my first promotion within six months of joining a company. The change to middle management required a different leadership style that I hadn't been accustomed to, getting to organizational outcomes through others. For the first time it was impossible for me to implement all the project plans, run all of the operations, do all the tasks, etc. The shear thought of my success resting so much on others thrust me into a panic. That's when a mentor asked me two important questions, do you have a therapist and have you heard of imposter syndrome? What followed was an awakening to learned behaviors from, you guessed it, childhood conditioning for survival and thriving. What was more shocking to me is that at the root of it all, there was a deeply ingrained doubt of my own intelligence and acumen. Imposter Syndrome caused me to explain away all of my success to luck, and tried to convince me that I am inadequate despite continued evidence of success. I had internalized shrinking myself from an early age. When did it happen? Was it when I changed elementary schools and silenced myself to try and gain "friends?" Was it in middle school when being smart was not cute? Or, was it in high school when one of my teachers mentioned how shocked she was that I was so normal and so smart (which followed with at least a 10 minute joke session from my entire class)? Who knows, but it was there and boy was it loud!

So, I dug in with the help of faith and a therapist to learn tools that begin to help me believe in my brilliance, and most importantly, openly celebrate my accomplishments. I began to learn that my level of humility was unhealthy, and that the light within was being hidden by my inability to own my greatness. With tools, the promotions continued to flow my way. Then, last week it hit me that I'm a Chief Strategy Officer (😂 y'all, I'm still processing). Immediately any form of doubt you could imagine swept over me. I started telling myself that I didn't earn the role, I'm not qualified for the role, and that ultimately I'm going to fail. From that the spiral continued into overanalyzing and catastrophizing. My thoughts were telling me things like, "They know you don't deserve this." "They're going to find out that you don't know what you're doing." Then, something clicked and I asked out loud, "Who is they and do they even matter?" The answer was "they" is "me" and these negative thoughts are for the birds. I reminded myself of the work boundaries I set and immediately pressed reset. Am I perfect? No. Should I be? Nope. Do I know everything about finance, accounting, data, analytics, investments and capital outlay? Naw, that's a whole lot. Do I know how to research and strategize? Yep. Can I build scalable systems and structures while coaching leaders? Yep Yep. Am I capable and deserving of being a Chief Strategy Officer? I SURE AM AND I'M COMING FOR EVERYTHING THAT'S MINE. 💕 Resources if you want to learn more (Just my opinion, I am not a therapeutic professional):

1. Therapy for Black Girls Podcast- Session 22: Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

• she provides several helpful links in the show notes

2. "The 5 Types of Imposter Syndrome and How to Beat Them"