Warning – rant alert. I’m doing Lucy Whittington’s 30 Things in 30 Days. Every day a new thing to do to explore your ‘Thing’. My Thing is helping women to feel career confident.
Day 9 (I’m a little behind) is to have a rant about what really annoys you. You were warned.
What really annoys me about ambitious women
I get really annoyed when I see incredibly talented ambitious women underselling themselves or not going for that promotion, holding back in meetings or not applying for that brilliant job that looks perfect on paper but “Yes but I don’t have any experience in xyz”.
Seriously women, you have just got to go for it. Just because you have had children or taken a career break or been made redundant or didn’t get the promotion this time, you are still amazingly and uniquely YOU.
You have a very unique set of skills, strengths, talents and experiences. Nobody else has the exact same set of experience as you do.
Applying for a new job or promotion
Worried that the role you want is out of your league? Don’t be. There’s no point taking on a new job that you can do with your eyes shut. Where’s the room for growth and personal development? Go for something that will challenge you.
Don’t have all the essential requirements? Be realistic. Recruiters don’t seriously expect every candidate to have every essential and every desirable.
For every woman that looks at that job description and thinks “Hmmm, I only have 8 out of 10 of the essential requirements”, there will be 10 men thinking “Excellent, I have at least 2 of the essentials and 1 of the desirables”.
Google’s Head of Diversity realised that women don’t respond well to bullet checklists on job descriptions, so he stopped using them on internal vacancies, and guess what. The number of women applying shot up!
Feelings of self-doubt
Many amazingly talented and experienced women have self-doubt. They hear their inner voice telling them how they got to this position by chance. That they were in the right place at the right time. That you don’t really deserve to be the Head of the Department. That one day you’ll get found out.
Sure, we all doubt ourselves from time to time. As I travelled up to a film shoot last week, the thought flashed through my head “Why on earth did they invite me? Me and Dr Christian Jessen in the same film. Seriously?”
And my reply (to myself – not out loud, I was on a train after all). “Yes YOU. You who wrote that amazing article about burnout and the importance of taking a proper break. Of course they invited you because they can see you really believe in what you do. That you are authentic, amazing, brilliant.”
Like many women, I experience self-doubts. I had to work through my limiting beliefs. And it hurt. It was hard. My limiting beliefs were (still are) about how hard I have to work to be successful.
What I never lacked is the confidence to stand up and be counted; to stand up for what I believe in. And I do believe in me.
Sometimes with those self-doubts (have you heard of the term imposter syndrome?), recognition is the first step to fixing it. I love that I persuaded the fabulous Rebecca Pintre to share her knowledge and expertise on imposter syndrome for The Confident Mother conference (that interview goes out Wednesday 25th).
We all have moments of self-doubt … if those are crippling you on the inside, make the decision today to do something about it.
Every time you put yourself out there
Every time a woman puts herself out there, who feels the fear and does it anyway, who does something beyond her comfort zone, who applies for that job and gets it (go Nancy), who writes her first ever blog post (congrats Carol), who polishes her LinkedIn profile and finds she gets “amazing response from people – emails and requests for meetings” (yay Hannah), I am cheering you on. Whether or not you are a mother. Whether or not you are a client.
Success happens ‘on purpose’. It’s not magic.
Let me help you
Everything I do and run is about helping ambitious women get clear on what they really want then find the confidence to go and do it. You’re smart, and I’m smart. But having someone to help you get that Confidence makes a BIG difference.
A simple conversation with me might be all you need. I’ll help as much as I can in the conversation, and if you want to take it further we can talk about that too. No pressure. I promise. Just click HERE to book a free clarity call.
#JanuaryDay7
I saw the title and was compelled to read and enjoyed what you had to say. When I was in corporate I would look at jobs or projects and think yep I can do that, even when I did not have the skills or experience, because I knew I could. However, it is one thing having the confidence to put yourself forward and quite another for the person recruiting to give you a chance. That never stopped me.
Once inside an organisation I have been lauded because I will take on roles and get stuff done, even when it is outside of what appears to be my skills. I adore a challenge and I adore the person who gives me the chance.
It is so important to explore what makes you feel excited about what is on offer and follow the excitement. You can learn as you go.
Go girls!
Absolutely Jacqui. Glad to see you put yourself forward.
Very inspiring and motivational. We need to stand up and be counted. We need to just go for it!
Absolutely Gill!
Sherry, a really great post! I definitely saw a lot of me in that post, and a lot of other women too. We are more than good enough and it is time for us to show the world! Inspiring! Thank you Sherry 🙂
Thanks Carrie, glad you liked this.
Self belief affects all of us, men and women, young and old, at many times in our life. I think we need to try and ‘teach’ our children to believe in themselves more, so that as they grow, they have the techniques to use to stop them from doubting themselves.
We all need to remember, (is it Jim Rohn?), “stepping outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens”. It’s taken me a long time to remember this, but now I have, it truly is magic 🙂
Cheering everyone on.
Yes stepping out of your comfort zone is magic and very powerful. And the more you do it, the more your comfort zone changes.
Well done Google for using common sense. Apart from some obvious qualifications like law etc, most business skills are transferable and so the job spec is kind of irrelevant in a lot of cases anyway!
I agree with you there Honey. So many skills are transferable from sector to sector.