Suzanne Mercier - Friday, December 18, 2009
Next week, like many of us, I'm going to join my family to spend time together, to relax, to eat good food, drink wonderful wine and connect.
At least, that's my intention.
I have a wonderful family and they are always concerned that Christmas is a great time. Of course, there's a lot of organising to do, food to buy, roles to allocate, all in between working and taking care of the family. The tension builds and by the time Christmas Day comes, everyone is exhausted. I'm sure that's a familiar story to many of you.
What we need is flexibility. I'm not talking about physically exercising more (although I could definitely benefit from that). I'm talking about emotional flexibility. You see - and you probably know already - when we're tense, we lose much of our emotional resilience. Out the window goes our patience, our empathy and our ability to make conscious choices. We can be more easily triggered into old patterns. We become reactive and it happens before we even know it. That's why we need the flexibility.
Before we can be flexible, though, we need the split second it takes to realise "Hmm I'm having a reaction to this. Something's going on." Then we are in a position to decide how we want to respond.
Breathing deeply helps. The first time we breathe deeply, we let go of stress and release the air / energy in our diaphragm. The second time we breathe deeply, we circulate the breath / oxygen around our bodies and up to our heads, clearing our brains and allowing us to make more conscious positive choices.
So, take two breaths before you respond and while you're doing that, remember why you're there. It's the bigger picture and family is important.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, whatever that might look like for you.
All the very best
Suzanne
Suzanne Mercier - Friday, December 18, 2009
As I talk and write about the Imposter Syndrome and more particularly, how we move past it, I focus in on the nature of fear. So many of us are gripped by that dreadful gut-wrenching feeling from time to time. I can recall a time when I had just finished renovating my apartment. I went out for an afternoon appointment and as I was driving home, I had that awful feeling that I had left eggs boiling on the stove. "My beautiful apartment. OMG what if I've started a fire!" I was completely consumed by fear and drove home like a maniac. Yes, I had left eggs boiling on the stove. Yes, they had boiled dry and the eggs had exploded. Unlike my fears, though, all that had happened - fortunately - was that I had redecorated the kitchen ceiling and walls with egg. The worst hadn't happened.
Isn't that true of so many things that we fear. We have this awful anticipation of what will happen and that inflames our fear making the whole situation worse.
I recently attended an excellent Advanced Presentation Skills workshop with Michelle Bowden (www.michellebowden.com.au). Her programme provided me with new skills and reminded me of some I wasn't capitalising on. I would highly recommend it.
In her programme she conducted an exercise around connecting with the audience. Broadly, the exercise involved taking my attention from my hands to an external place and back to my nose. Where I put my attention changed my physiology. When my attention was on my nose, I felt closed in, shut down. When it was on a much more expansive space, my body felt lighter and I felt more confident. Thinking about the exercise later, I realised that it had much broader application than presenting skills (and it is excellent for that, don't get me wrong). I realised that when I am fearful, my attention is on the end of my nose, so to speak. I am closed down, I can't see the possibilities. When I extend my attention, I open up to the bigger picture. It may be a plan I have or it may simply be putting that one situation into context.
Now, when I become fearful, I practice extending my attention beyond the situation that has stimulated the feeling of fear and into a bigger time frame and bigger outcome. It stops me from spiralling into a negative mindset and behaving in ways that can sabotage my desired outcomes.
Try it the next time fear grips you. I'd love to hear if it works for you.
Thank you
Suzanne
Suzanne Mercier - Thursday, December 17, 2009
I often get told that people should keep their personal lives outside the workplace; that when they come to work they should focus just on work. Those same people say that they want their employees to be engaged so employee performance and contribution are higher. I say - you can't have it both ways! If you want people to be engaged and to deliver higher performance you are asking them to draw on their life experiences, their previous work experiences, their way of thinking, their extra-curricular activities, their reading - anything that influences how they think and behave as well as the results they achieve.
So, by the same token, anything that influences how they think and behave is something you should be concerned about too. And particularly, if that "anything" is as insidious as the Imposter Syndrome.
Feeling like a fake and fraud, feeling not good enough, wanting to avoid being discovered and exposed are common symptoms of someone experiencing imposterhood. Attributing their success to the rest of their team, to good luck, to someone else's mistakenly good view of them are also typical symptoms.
The reason the imposter syndrome is such a significant barrier to employee engagement and performance is that, in the interests of self-preservation, people experiencing the syndrome engage in behaviours to reduce the likelihood they will be exposed.
People engaged in feeling like imposters keep themselves separate, become hypervigilant tracking for the possibility of exposure and/or act in a judgemental manner. They can be prickly or sullen.
They may withhold themselves and their ideas, take feedback very
personally and become defensive. They might do their best to fit in
even if it means sacrificing their talents, perhaps even hide because
if they're invisible, they can't be exposed and rejected. They may
also judge others and be vocal in their view of shortcomings. They may
also go for the gold without consideration of risk or consequence
whether human or financial.
If you follow this through, the impact on bottom line is HUGE. Self-titled imposters don't contribute to innovation, which is the lifeblood of any successful organisation. They don't take feedback well which limits their capacity to improve their performance. They may not connect with their colleagues because keeping themselves separate keeps them safe and this impacts on top performing teams, again impacting on performance. They may undermine morale with their judgement and criticism. They are difficult to engage at any time, let alone when they are triggered and feeling 'not good enough'. this means you aren't getting that discretionary effort which translates to higher internal and external customer service, greater advocacy and increased bottom line.
If you or anyone you know is involved in putting together leadership programmes, management training or an employee engagement initiative, you might like to let them know that their results will be severely diminished by any existing feelings of imposterhood. And based on extensive research (see our research page), that would be at least 33% of your workforce each and every day!
What do you think? I'd love to hear.
Thanks.
Suzanne
Suzanne Mercier - Friday, December 11, 2009
Christmas is commonly a time when all the relatives come together for one intense period of time, united by blood or marriage. Old roles wait to trap us and regardless of what we have achieved out there in the world, we may find ourselves pulled back into being the son or daughter, desperately trying to get parental approval, or the sibling playing out old rivalries.
Regardless of the source of family angst, the key is to remain calm, to not get caught up in the old patterns and continue to react to them again this year.
Awareness is the first step. Notice your response to behaviours - things that are said or done. Particularly notice when you get upset. Hopefully it's before you react, although often it is mid-flight that we pick up what we're doing. When you become aware that you're caught in an old pattern, you have the choice to break the pattern and change the relationship. There are a few ways you can do this:
1. Physically break it - make a cup of tea or coffee, go to the loo or do something that physically removes you from the space and gives you time + space to figure out what's really going on.
2. Emotionally break the pattern - if you can't physically move because it's inappropriate, step back from the situation so you can disengage your emotions and think more rationally about what is going on. In your mind, you can "Go to the Movies" to disengage. Look around you at the people and surroundings. Now step back out of the picture, so you can see yourself in the scene - as if it was a movie. Throw the movie up onto a screen in front of you and play with it. Run it forwards, run it backwards. Change from colour to black and white, and back again. Slow it down, speed it up. Now give yourself some distance from it by sitting in the first row of the movie theatre and looking up to the screen. Stand up and move back to the 6th row. Watch the back of your head in the front row watching the movie. Stand up and move to the 12th row and watch the back of your head, watching the back of your head watching the movie. Stand up again and move back to the 18th row. Watch the back of your head, watching the back of your head, watching the back of your head watching the movie. Now move into the projection booth. Look down into the audience and see yourself in the 18th row watching the back of your head in the 12th row watching the back of your head in the 6th row, watching the back of your head in the front row watching the movie. By now, you will feel much calmer emotionally and can look at the situation without the noise of emotional reaction playing in your head.
Everyone does the best they can in the circumstances, even if it doesn't feel that way. It would be helpful for you and for your family if you could move from whatever emotion you were experiencing to a position of compassion and curiosity, seeking to understand what's going on for them and what their needs might be. Perhaps you can help meet those needs.
Once you've got to that point, you can really connect with your family and appreciate them for their wonderful qualities and the opportunities they give us to learn about ourselves.
What do you think? I'd love to hear.
Thanks.
Suzanne
Suzanne Mercier - Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The word integrity is often misused or confused with honesty. Integrity refers to wholeness, alignment, integration. When we refer to personal integrity we are talking about alignment of 3 key aspects of self: How I really see myself (the 3 a.m. test); How I would like others to see me and How they actually do see me. When someone is integrated - operating from integrity - those three aspects of self overlap. They are all communicating the same thing. People around get a sense of solidity and unconsciously trust that what they see is what they get.
At least 70% of us, though, experience the Imposter Syndrome at some stage in our careers, and around 33% of us experience it at a chronic level. When we are feeling like imposters, we feel that we are not good enough and we do everything we can to keep this "fact" from the world. The two internal aspects - How I really see myself and How I want others to see me - are light years apart.
If we have the tendency or even the possibility of experiencing imposterhood, we will have a quite different view of ourselves than the one we would like others to see. We put forward a side of ourselves that is what we want others to see - we put on a mask. This mask may be founded on some true personal characteristics, but it is highly unlikely that what we present is complete. For most of us, the mask excludes some of the aspects of ourselves that we find unpalatable - the shadow-side.
Other people certainly pick up the mask at a conscious level because that is what we are presenting. Yet, they pick up more. At an unconscious level, they pick up that something isn't quite right. They intuitively feel that there is more than they are seeing and experiencing and this leads to a sense of mistrust. Similarly, they may pick up that someone is far more talented than they are letting on and question why they would withhold their talent.
So, what do we do with that information???
There are several important pieces of information here. Firstly, the view we hold of ourselves when we feel like imposters is distorted - not real. We can see feedback on our strengths and successes from someone we trust and start to redress that distortion. Secondly, when we hold a very different and negative view of ourselves and hide it behind a mask, others still get a sense that there is something else going on. They are getting conflicting messages from the mask and from the sense that we are withholding something. Finally, we need to realise that it is OK to acknowledge and accept that we have talents, skills and qualities. It is not immodest - particularly when those talents, skills and qualities are grounded in humility and gratitude. After all, we can't be of service if we don't acknowledge that we have something to offer.
What do you think? I'd love to hear.
Thanks.
Suzanne
Suzanne Mercier - Saturday, December 05, 2009
Last week I talked about the limitations fear brings into our lives. I ended that blog with the comment that we get what we ask for ... and what we believe we deserve.
This week I want to talk about beliefs and how powerful they are.
Many years ago, I was fortunate to be told about the incredibly powerful work being conducted by Dr. Bruce Lipton, a cellular biologist specialising in muscular dystrophy. He stated that only 5% of diseases are caused by genetics and the rest of them are diseases of belief. He proved that the protein sheath that covers our DNA behaves and interacts in response to messages received from the brain and that our brain perceives and interprets "reality" according to what we believe to be true about the world around us.
We have beliefs about many things - about other people, about situations and most importantly, about our identity. when we experience Imposterhood, our beliefs about ourselves are quite distorted as we are unable to claim full responsibility for our successes. We tend to believe that we are less intelligent than others or than others might think we are. We believe if we can do something, anyone can do it and so we dismiss our talents and skills as not measuring up.
We put incredible power into those beliefs and they manifest in us living much smaller lives than we are capable of. We stop ourselves from reaching out for opportunities, acknowledgeing and celebrating our successes, asking for the salary increase that should come with the increased responsibility, putting forward our great ideas. We stop ourselves from dreaming big and we may search fruitlessly for more meaning in our lives. Yet we can't find fulfillment if we deny who we are, the talents we have and the services we might provide to others.
Here's a thought for 2010. What will happen if we turn the power of those beliefs that limit us into beliefs that support us? What will happen if we stop beating up on ourselves and start to appreciate who we truly are? What will happen if we allow ourselves to step up into the shoes that are waiting for us ... the shoes that are rightfully ours. What will happen if, reflecting on the words of Marianne Williamson for Nelson Mandela, we decide to embrace our light, not our perceived inadequacy.
Now that sounds like a great start to the year! What do you think? I'd love to hear.
Thanks
Suzanne
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