Imposter Syndrome While Working From Home (WFH)
During the last year, while the world turned upside down, more and more of my clients started working from home, whilst struggling even more with the imposter syndrome; that is feeling like a failure and not knowing how to address it, especially over zoom calls…
How can you prove that you deserve a promotion when you haven’t worn actual work clothes in weeks, when you haven’t had the chance to share your concerns as deadlines are too tight and zoom meet ups is the closer you can get to your manager???
I’m afraid imposter syndrome doesn’t go away with getting a temporary boost of confidence by either texting a friend or talking highly of yourself in front of the mirror… what you need to do is to evaluate yourself realistically, without expecting too much praise or criticism from others.
But it’s very challenging to be able to evaluate yourself when you don’t have your own definition of what you’re trying to do or who you’re trying to be. Without this framework, you are likely to use people’s reactions or expressions as an indication towards success or failure. And when working from home, it’s much more complicated to get this feedback right.
Therefore in order to be able to be objective and assess your performance, I would like to ask you to think the following questions:
what is your definition of good work?
what do you think of your performance either today or based on the latest project?
what went well and what could have been done differently ?
whose opinion is important to you?
By asking the above mentioned questions, you train yourself to be able to evaluate your opinion, your performance, without focusing too much on the reactions of others. Therefore in the likelihood that you get to receive a nasty email from your manager or when you get to hear that another colleague got promoted instead of you, you would find yourself being able to handle it with less frustration, upset and anger. When you are aware of your worth and the work you have done, you won’t have to worry about how other people perceive of you. You will be able to feel it yourself and it will show!
