After a few years in the coaching business, I noticed a lot of brilliant coaches that do not know how to or do not want to promote their services properly. And after discussing the topic with some of my fellow coaches in the same situation, the result is always the same, being good at something and selling that service are two completely different things and require two different skill sets. Some coaches have them both, some don’t. This is why the coaching platforms are so popular among coaches. And there is another thing common to these professionals, especially if they are at the beginning of their career: the impostor syndrome.
The impostor syndrome is a limiting belief of a person that starts a new career, has little experience in the field but high standards of themselves and of others as well. These people have been usually very competent in what they did before (thus the high standards) and have very high chances of becoming very competent (if they are not already, without knowing it).
Ever since I started my career as an employee and then a manager, I was looking for mentors, people who can inspire me. I found them at first, but after a few years in the field, after I learned and gained enough skills, I started to see the flaws. I started to question their thinking and their decisions; I would have done differently. Looking back at my corporate leadership years, I realize I did it my way and I was successful. I left the corporate world in search for other mentors, people I could look up to, that were more skilled, knowledgeable and wiser. And I found them, for another few years. And then they vanished, I started to see the flaws, question their decisions, I took them off the pedestal. During both early careers I had the impostor syndrome, I thought I was not good enough to …expose and express myself, to sell my services.
Putting others on a pedestal and thinking the world of them meant I am inferior, and this made me less willing to take action. I am not good enough so I will when I will be like them. This meant that I did not manifest the skills that I already had, and I remained static. No action, but instead, a lot of wasted time. Holding those people in such high regard, also meant that I did not see them as human beings with qualities and flaws, they were some kinds of gods to me and I could not connect with them in a compassionate way as I would with a regular person. I felt only admiration for them and the inevitable disappointment when they fell short of my idealized image of them.
With time I realized that nobody is better than me at everything, we are all different and our experiences are so different that our skills cannot in any way be the same. What I also noticed is that people who are very good at something, they got so good because they have put a lot of time and energy into that particular skill. And this makes them a lot less good at other things, sometimes very important life skills. Each of us have our own ways of doing things, using our own unique abilities to reach a goal and there are no two paths the same.
This is why it is so important to know our own abilities. I received a question once and I am still searching for the answer: What am I the best at? What is that thing that I can do better than anyone else? I feel I am closer now to the answer than I was when I received it, but I still need to refine it.
By answering this question, I know what sets me apart and I know what I bring into this world. By knowing this, it becomes easier accepting my flaws and it also becomes clear how to use my abilities to overcome a challenge and achieve a goal.
Reflecting on it, the reason behind searching for a mentor was a hope I had that as we grow older, we learn what life is all about, we become surer of ourselves, and we struggle less. I know now my hope was in vain. We all struggle, no matter the age or social status; life is full of ups and downs.
As Bert Hellinger wrote:
“Whatever is alive is incomplete and in a process of becoming. The dead are complete. The longing for completion is, in essence, a longing for death. In order to stay living one must respect incompleteness.”
We will always be incomplete, and as long as we are alive there will always be room for improvement. The only thing to do is to go out there and start acting, start manifesting our gifts, this is how we learn and how we live.
