Author: Daniel Rodellar, PMP
We closed 2018 with a great event in Lausanne on 6 December by Sally Fisher, founder of AH!HA moments. Sally was a former lawyer with Linklaters and Consulting Partner with Deloitte, who now runs her own international leadership development practice.
The new year 2019 starts now and the resolutions lists are popping up... I have a proposal for you to add on your resolutions for 2019 based on this thought-provoking confidence event!
Instead of subscribing to the gym and give up after first sessions, experiment the following: at the end of the week, on your commuting home, roll back the whole week and look for successes. Write them down, as this will be your evidence basis when you lack confidence.
It will confirm and illustrate:
- When have I been in a similar situation and succeeded?
- What did I do that can help me now?
- If I did it previously, why did it or did it not work now?
Sally led an engaging and entertaining exploration into how we can build more confidence and develop our ability to more consistently deliver peak performance under pressure.
She shared her career experience defined by peaks of confidence and periods of crisis of confidence, with the goal to understand what drives the peaks.
How much of an edge do we need to have to get a promotion? Just 5% can make a change! Sally asked us to name an achievement that meant something to us obtained on last week. It took some time to get everyone answering that question. It is important to recognize success!! Are you looking for what you could do better or celebrate what your teams do well?
The impostor syndrome was first found in Hollywood actors. Most of the people experience this when they get promoted. You need to identify what your trigger is for loss of confidence (feeling unprepared, not knowing how to answer, etc).
Once in this situation, we have the choice on how we respond to it: we could back away from the opportunity, we could simulate we know the answer, etc. You need to recognize the feeling that your body triggers and then DOUBT YOUR DOUBT!
Take a workout mentality to work, like you do with physical fitness, and it will make you stronger with time. Embrace the pain and welcome the challenges.
We agreed that it is quicker to identify what is worrying us than successes. When we worry we tend to try to solve all the problems, but we should start with the first action that we could take. And solve it, step by step.
Sally shared the amazing story about her reading of the horoscope one month that was said “Everything you touch will turn to gold!” With this message, everything was so easy because she acted as if it were true, and she did plenty of first actions that ultimately delivered results. It is about your mindset and your physiology (body language).
You believe what you tell yourself! We did an exercise about repeating sentences like “I’m weak and tired” versus “I’m powerful and strong!” and our body reacts accordingly. Master your mindset and act, because the environment can be toxic. You could for example repeat 3 times “I’m strong, I’m powerful and I’m calm” (the last one to avoid breaking anything or being too aggressive…).
We ended the event with some questions from the audience related to how to position yourself for a promotion (by formulating it as: how could I help them make the best decision?) and also related to the impostor syndrome (move towards your trigger – physically, remember your successes database and smile, then get back to normal…).
You can find Sally online at her company's web page: www.ahhamoments.co.uk.
Before leaving, remember: at the end of the week, while commuting home, roll back the whole week and look for successes. Write them down, as this will be your evidence base when you lack confidence. And doubt your doubts!
See you next event!
